Hi to all: I'm honored to find and post to this message board. I'm not a chef but I have been a cook "forever" starting in the US Navy. My wife and I had the Chicken Scampi at Olive Garden while on vacation recently. The garlic sauce would be the hard part. The rest is chicken, onions, peppers and angel hair pasta. Thanks for any help.
Jesse

[mudbug]

Welcome Jesse,

If you're ever looking for "copies" of recipes from restaurants or brand name foods, check out the "Top Secret Recipes" website at http://www.topsecretrecipes.com

Olive Garden Chicken Scampi
===========================
White Sauce Base:

Heat 1 tablespoon butter in nonstick skillet. After it's melted, add 2 tablespoons flour and cook for 2 minutes on Medium heat. slowly add milk and stir constantly to get rid oflumps. When you have added enough milk, you should have like a white gravy consistency. Set this aside. You will have much more white sauce than you will actually need.

Scampi Sauce:

2 sticks butter
2 tablespoons crushed garlic (real garlic; not salt or the dried
stuff
2 tablespoons chicken stock
3/4 cup chablis (actually, I used Riesling and it worked fine) or
any white wine that's not too sweet.
1 cup water
1/4 cup white sauce
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
2 tablespoons italian seasoning
black pepper to taste.
.
Heat butter over a slow heat. Add the garlic, italian seasoning and crushed red pepper. Cook for about 2 minutes on low heat. Add the wine, water, and chicken base. Stir until combined. Add the white sauce mix and stir until slightly thickened.

The rest of it:
1/2 package of angel hair, cooked according to package directions,
thinly sliced bell peppers (red, green and yellow),
thinly sliced red onions,
about 10 whole garlic cloves

Put the garlic cloves in a small nonstick skillet with some oil and braise them for about 20 minutes on low heat. Just put the lid on the skillet and let them cook, they should be golden and really soft when they are done. In a large nonstick skillet, saute the peppers and onions for a few minutes. Also, saute chicken tenderloins (however many you feel like cooking or eating!) Add the angel hair and pour the sauce over. Saute until everything is mixed together and sauce is reheated. Add garlic cloves.

Source: Joseph Garness

From: http://www.topsecretrecipes.com/ubb/...ML/000623.html

[This message has been edited by cchiu (edited 11-20-2000).]

Thanks, Cchiu
I believe this is close enough. I will try it.

------------------
Cook

[UniChef]

Someone please tell me it's not true- the Olive Garden has a chicken dish called "scampi"?...with no shrimp in it whatsoever?

I suppose they have prime rib "with" au jus also. Another one of my menu pet peeves.

Escoffier would turn over in his grave!

[cape chef]

There is no such thing as chicken Scampi. Don't believe everything you eat.
Do we all know what scampi is??
cc

[Greg]

And another addition to the list of redundant and/or incorrect menu items: mesclun mix!

Yes I do know and I couldn't figure out why they called it "chicken scampi", anyway it was delicious served with a huge salad.

scam[pi]
n.,

1 any of several large, greenish prawns, valued as food
2 a large shrimp broiled or fried with its tail on and served hot

[Isa]

Uni Chef,

Bocuse has a recipe for Poularde aux écrevisses, roughly translated it means chicken with crawfish. Apparently it is a old traditional French recipe. I don't know the Olive Garden and have no idea what they did with this dish. If you'd like Bocuse's recipe let me know and I'll try to translate it.

Some years ago, in Brittany I had Poularde aux écrevisses for dinner. It was one of the best meal I've had.


Sisi

[Katherine]

"Shrimp scampi" is a commonly used name in the US for "Shrimp in Garlic Butter or Oil", even though its literal meaning is "Shrimp shrimp". (English/Italian) Therefore, the marketing geniuses at the Olive Garden's Corporate headquarters decided that the word "scampi" must mean "in garlic sauce" and applied this to a preparation of chicken served over pasta.

[Nick.Shu]

muahah, is that like correspondence for the chef at a restaurant addressed as: to the Chief Chef?

I'm glad I'm not the only one that gets a little annoyed with this stuff.

I was looking through a bread book yesterday, and there was a recipe for Portugese Bread. The little commentary said that it would be great with Caldo Verde "a popular Portugese bean soup." Huh? I guess I've been making it wrong for a few years now - mine has linguica, kale and potatoes - not a bean within miles of it.

It really irritates me when menus are misleading this way - cookbooks/mags as well. One of my favorite non-fine dining places is the Macaroni Grill; they have a dish in which prosciutto is listed as an ingredient, but it is most definitely pancetta in the dish. Do they just figure that the average diner won't know the difference, or is just more familiar with prosciutto?

[Isa]

Marye,


My sentiment exactly. You order one thing and you get a completly different thing.

In a French restaurant I once ordered a Charlotte aux poires and got a chocolate marquise with a few slices of pear. Try to explain how different it is, they don't believe you. Told the waiter to check the definition of both in the Larousee gastronomique.