Mutant casserole!
In a last, desperate attempt to avoid working on my Hammond fic (and because rabiagale requested it) I give you the recipe for the most awesome chicken casserole with mushrooms and white sauce EVER! This is actually a recipe that my sister green_tea_lady took apart to see how it worked and put back together again, only better (thus it came to be known as "Mutant Casserole"). It started life as a recipe for vegetarian lasagna, but by the time GT had finished with it, it was a chicken casserole. GT's just that good.
Ingredients:
Salt
Olive oil
4-6 frozen boneless chicken breasts
1 lb bag of Penne*
4 cups whole milk (no 2%! I forbid it!)
12 Tbsp butter, divided
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 1/2 lbs Portobello mushrooms**
1 bag frozen peas***
1 cup ground Parmesan
Plain breadcrumbs
*You may not use quite all of the pasta, it's up to you. GT's recipe actually calls for 3/4 of a pound rather than the whole one-pound bag, but a) I'm too lazy to figure out how much is 3/4 of the bag, and b) we of the Anderson Ancestral Abode love starch with a deep and abiding love.
**Use your own best judgment when deciding how many mushrooms should go in. I usually end up putting about two large ones in, but use less or more to your preference.
***I've never made this with peas because one of the pixies has a pathological aversion to them, but GT says they're excellent in this dish.
Directions:
We're going to split this up into two sets of directions because it involves a sauce that does not come out of a jar. Normally, I am opposed to making my own sauces, but this one is delicious enough to make it worth the extra effort. So.
Sauce:
I find that making this ahead of time, like the night before, helps get this on the table a lot faster. If you decide to keep it in the fridge overnight, just know that you'll need to add water or milk to thin it out again, since it will have thickened to a viscous gloop overnight.
1. Bring milk to a simmer in a saucepan, and set aside.*
2. Melt 8 Tbsp (1 stick) of butter in the bottom of a large saucepan.
3. Add flour to butter and cook for 1 min over low heat, stirring constantly.**
4. Pour hot milk into the butter-flour mixture all at once.
5. Add 1 Tbsp salt, the pepper, and the nutmeg. Cook over medium-low heat for 3 to 5 min, stirring first with a spoon, then with a whisk. Set aside off heat.
*I have no idea why you have to do this, but GT swore that the sauce would come out wrong if I skipped this step. She also implied that I might actually incur the wrath of the cooking gods for being so lazy. I'm not taking any chances.
**For this, I like using one of those Asian cooking utensils that are like a cross between a wooden spoon and a spatula. Also of note: at this point in the recipe, my sister has written in "Ya, not kidding, keep stirring," because she knows that I will otherwise interperate "stir constantly" to mean "poke it with a spoon from time to time."
Everything Else:
- Preheat oven to 375
1. Bring a pot of water to boil and cook pasta with some oil and salt.
2. Throw the chicken into the oven in a casserole dish (or two, if you're making all six chicken breasts) and bake until they're cooked through. I put butter and minced garlic on mine, to keep them moist, but use your own favorite method for yummy chicken.
3. Chop chicken up into bite-sized pieces.
4. Separate the mushroom stems from the caps and toss them. Chop the caps up into teeny pieces.
5. Heat 2 Tbsp of oil and 2 Tbsp of butter in a wok or skillet. Add the mushrooms, sprinkle with salt, and cook over medium heat, tossing occasionally, for about 5 min, until they're tender and have released some of their juices.
6. Dump EVERYTHING, including the white sauce, into an enormous bowl or pot (really, if you have a genuine cauldron handy, you might want to break that out) and mix it all together.
7. Dump into casserole dishes (this should fill one normal glass casserole dish, plus one half-sized one) and sprinkle with breadcrumbs and Parmesan (yay delicious topping!).
8. Throw it all in the oven for about 40 min. Let it cool down a bit before serving. I serve this with green salad because I serve everything with green salad. You're free to come up with your own vegetable options.
Serves a lot.
Enjoy! Fair warning: this dish is a little more labor-intensive than my usual fare, and involves a lot of dishes. Sorry. But it's worth the extra trouble, because it's pretty much the most edible thing ever created, and also makes you look like you really have this cooking thing wired, what with the unusual sauce-from-scratch element. So I call it a win despite all the saucepans I have to wash afterward.
Ingredients:
Salt
Olive oil
4-6 frozen boneless chicken breasts
1 lb bag of Penne*
4 cups whole milk (no 2%! I forbid it!)
12 Tbsp butter, divided
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 1/2 lbs Portobello mushrooms**
1 bag frozen peas***
1 cup ground Parmesan
Plain breadcrumbs
*You may not use quite all of the pasta, it's up to you. GT's recipe actually calls for 3/4 of a pound rather than the whole one-pound bag, but a) I'm too lazy to figure out how much is 3/4 of the bag, and b) we of the Anderson Ancestral Abode love starch with a deep and abiding love.
**Use your own best judgment when deciding how many mushrooms should go in. I usually end up putting about two large ones in, but use less or more to your preference.
***I've never made this with peas because one of the pixies has a pathological aversion to them, but GT says they're excellent in this dish.
Directions:
We're going to split this up into two sets of directions because it involves a sauce that does not come out of a jar. Normally, I am opposed to making my own sauces, but this one is delicious enough to make it worth the extra effort. So.
Sauce:
I find that making this ahead of time, like the night before, helps get this on the table a lot faster. If you decide to keep it in the fridge overnight, just know that you'll need to add water or milk to thin it out again, since it will have thickened to a viscous gloop overnight.
1. Bring milk to a simmer in a saucepan, and set aside.*
2. Melt 8 Tbsp (1 stick) of butter in the bottom of a large saucepan.
3. Add flour to butter and cook for 1 min over low heat, stirring constantly.**
4. Pour hot milk into the butter-flour mixture all at once.
5. Add 1 Tbsp salt, the pepper, and the nutmeg. Cook over medium-low heat for 3 to 5 min, stirring first with a spoon, then with a whisk. Set aside off heat.
*I have no idea why you have to do this, but GT swore that the sauce would come out wrong if I skipped this step. She also implied that I might actually incur the wrath of the cooking gods for being so lazy. I'm not taking any chances.
**For this, I like using one of those Asian cooking utensils that are like a cross between a wooden spoon and a spatula. Also of note: at this point in the recipe, my sister has written in "Ya, not kidding, keep stirring," because she knows that I will otherwise interperate "stir constantly" to mean "poke it with a spoon from time to time."
Everything Else:
- Preheat oven to 375
1. Bring a pot of water to boil and cook pasta with some oil and salt.
2. Throw the chicken into the oven in a casserole dish (or two, if you're making all six chicken breasts) and bake until they're cooked through. I put butter and minced garlic on mine, to keep them moist, but use your own favorite method for yummy chicken.
3. Chop chicken up into bite-sized pieces.
4. Separate the mushroom stems from the caps and toss them. Chop the caps up into teeny pieces.
5. Heat 2 Tbsp of oil and 2 Tbsp of butter in a wok or skillet. Add the mushrooms, sprinkle with salt, and cook over medium heat, tossing occasionally, for about 5 min, until they're tender and have released some of their juices.
6. Dump EVERYTHING, including the white sauce, into an enormous bowl or pot (really, if you have a genuine cauldron handy, you might want to break that out) and mix it all together.
7. Dump into casserole dishes (this should fill one normal glass casserole dish, plus one half-sized one) and sprinkle with breadcrumbs and Parmesan (yay delicious topping!).
8. Throw it all in the oven for about 40 min. Let it cool down a bit before serving. I serve this with green salad because I serve everything with green salad. You're free to come up with your own vegetable options.
Serves a lot.
Enjoy! Fair warning: this dish is a little more labor-intensive than my usual fare, and involves a lot of dishes. Sorry. But it's worth the extra trouble, because it's pretty much the most edible thing ever created, and also makes you look like you really have this cooking thing wired, what with the unusual sauce-from-scratch element. So I call it a win despite all the saucepans I have to wash afterward.