T.g.i. Friday's Spicy Cajun Chicken Pasta

"Here is a copycat recipe that I received via email."
 
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photo by Jessie M. photo by Jessie M.
photo by Jessie M.
photo by cassandra.asvestas photo by cassandra.asvestas
Ready In:
30mins
Ingredients:
14
Yields:
2-4 dishes
Serves:
2-4
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ingredients

  • For the Spicy Cajun Pasta Sauce

  • 2 ounces olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon garlic, fresh, chopped
  • 12 cup onion, cut in large chunks
  • 12 cup green pepper, diced in large pieces
  • 12 cup red pepper, diced in large pieces
  • 18 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • 1 cup chicken stock
  • 1 cup v 8 vegetable juice
  • 1 -3 tablespoon cornstarch (mix about a tablespoon with a couple table spoons cold water to form a slurry)
  • salt and pepper, to taste
  • For the Pasta

  • 10 ounces fettuccine (cooked al dente)
  • 1 tablespoon parmesan cheese
  • 1 chicken breast, boneless, skinless, cooked and sliced in strips
  • 1 teaspoon parsley, chopped
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directions

  • Prepare sauce: Heat oil in saute pan; add garlic; saute for 30 seconds; add onions and saute for 1 minute; add peppers and continue to saute for another minute. Deglaze with chicken stock and reduce to half. Add V-8 juice and cayenne pepper; bring to boil; simmer 10 minutes.
  • Thicken to consistency with cornstarch; season to taste with salt and pepper.
  • Add cooked pasta to sauce and heat through until hot.
  • Arrange on serving dish and top with chicken breast. Sprinkle with Parmesan and parsley.

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Reviews

  1. I used to work at TGI Fridays in the late 90's as a cook when this was on the menu there. This recipe is relatively close, with a few omissions. There's no V8, corn starch, or chicken broth in it. The pasta was pre-cooked, tossed in oil and portioned off in bags, as were the red and green bell pepper, onion and garlic (just sauteed until tender). To make an order of it, cut up chicken was cooked in an iron skillet, seasoned with a cajun spice blend, then we added butter and oil and the sauteed veggies with some more cajun seasoning. Warm the pasta in the microwave then add it to the skillet and toss everything together. Then to garnish it, we topped it with some shredded parmesan and parsley. The cajun spice blend itself was something TGI Fridays supplied on it's own, it was in white bags with no ingredients listed. But Emeril's "Essence" seasoning or Spice Supreme's Cajun seasoning is very close.
     
  2. Ok - so when my husband comes in to find out what I am cooking because "it smells soooo good", well that gets you 3 stars - automatically, but then you factor in the ease of the recipe and how much we both enjoyed it, it is an easy 5 star meal. I made very few variations, just roasted red peppers (jarred on hand) and added some smoked paprika - it was yummy!
     
  3. This recipe was NOTHING like TGI Friday’s. I had to add other ingredients to make it taste good, booooo
     
  4. Tweaks required for 5 stars!! In general make sure to get our special ingredient which kicked up the flavor on our dish "Paesana Fra Diavolo Hot & Spicy Pasta Sauce" (and no this is not a paid advertisement just my favorite sauce) and since it wasn't addressed in the recipe we figured out how were going to infuse the meat with the kick from the cayenne. (which we kept pronouncing as Kanye, LOL making dinner at 10pm makes us silly) This dish came out AMAZING with our changes!! ______________________ My sister and I made this recipe SOOO much better! My sister and I didn't see the bad reviews for this until after we bought all of the ingredients and started cooking, our on the fly fixes made it creamy and thick with a kick of delicious flavor. (Just like TGI Friday!) Fix 1) Onions take 5+minutes to become translucent. Fix 2) before the "deglazing" step remove pepper/onion/garlic and most of oil from sauce pan and mix with warm pasta to keep it from sticking. Fix 3) After adding the stock to the remaining oil & garlic/onion pan and reducing the mixture by a quarter, add the shrimp &/or chicken (we didn't use chicken so it might take longer to cook) and reduce it a little bit more if needed. The shrimp added a little moisture to ours. Fix 4) After heating the meat substitute the V-8 juice with 2 cups of Paesana Fra Diavolo hot and spicy pasta sauce (I bought at Market Basket in MA) with 1/4tsp of cayenne. And cook the meat in the spices for the 10 minutes as instructed. Fix 5) Remove meat and mix it with the Pasta/onion/pepper/garlic/oil to keep pasta from sticking. Fix 6) Using a 1 to 1 ration of cold water to cornstarch we used 3 tbls of cold water and slowly whisked (I used a fork) 3 tbls of cornstarch into the water. Once meat was removed we mixed small potions of the "slurry" into the sauce until as thick as you want. OMG - this meal provided my sister who loves HEAT and me who prefers MILD both a delicious meal that we LOVED. The one variation on our meal that we are hoping to try next time is to seer the shrimp in the Cayenne for my sister because it will probably be too spicy for me.
     
  5. This is an older TGI Friday's recipe - they don't have this on their menu any longer, and I was excited to find it on here. This was on the menu when I worked there in college back in the mid-90's. I thought this was very similar to the original and while it didn't have quite the punch, it was very good and very easy.
     
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Tweaks

  1. My sister and I made this recipe SOOO much better! My sister and I didn't see the bad reviews for this until after we bought all of the ingredients and started cooking, our on the fly fixes made it creamy thick with a punch of delicious kick of flavor. (Just like TGI Friday!) Fix 1) Onions take 5+minutes to become translucent. Fix 2) before the "deglazing" step remove pepper/onion/garlic and most of oil from sauce pan and mix with warm pasta to keep it from sticking. Fix 3) After adding the stock to the remaining oil & garlic/onion pan and reducing the mixture by a quarter, add the shrimp &/or chicken (we didn't use chicken so it might take longer to cook) and reduce it a little bit more if needed. The shrimp added a little moisture to ours. Fix 4) After heating the meat substitute the V-8 juice with 2 cups of Paesana Fra Diavolo hot and spicy pasta sauce (I bought at Market Basket in MA) with 1/4tsp of cayenne. And cook the meat in the spices for the 10 minutes as instructed. Fix 5) Remove meat and mix it with the Pasta/onion/pepper/garlic/oil to keep pasta from sticking. Fix 6) Using a 1 to 1 ration of cold water to cornstarch we used 3 tbls of cold water and slowly whisked (I used a fork) 3 tbls of cornstarch into the water. Once meat was removed we mixed small potions of the "slurry" into the sauce until as thick as you want. OMG - this meal provided my sister who loves HEAT and me who prefers MILD both a delicious meal that we LOVED. The one variation on our meal that we are hoping to try next time is to seer the shrimp in the Cayenne for my sister because it will probably be too spicy for me.
     
    • Review photo by cassandra.asvestas

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