Mutant casserole!

[kalquessa]

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

Comments

[feliciakw]

Question: Do you ever use a slow cooker? I've got a great bbq chicken recipe for the slow cooker wherein you make your own sauce.

Just wonderin'.

And yes, I do have a cast iron Dutch oven, aka my cauldron.

[kalquessa]

We use the crockpot for pot roast, but that's mostly it. I really should look into more sauces-via-slow-cooker, that thing does not get nearly enough love from us, these days.

Yay cauldrons! The mother-in-law has this truly huge soup kettle thing that is the biggest pot I've ever seen and it's just the best thing ever when you're trying to feed a household of eight plus girlfriends, brothers and whoever else wanders in.

[jd3000]

since it will have thickened to a viscous gloop

Cousin of Augustus.

*I have no idea why you have to do this

Hot liquid will integrate better with a roux, but I've made good bechamels starting with cold liquid, so it might be just erring on the side of caution. :-)

I put butter and minced garlic on mine, to keep them moist, but use your own favorite method for yummy chicken.

If you use chicken breasts with skin and bone on and then roast them, you will have the most flavorful and moist chicken possible under the laws of the universe. Only a bit more work when it comes to chopping them, but easy and hey, you can eat the roast chicken skin!

What you also could do to skip the roasting step is slice the chicken into chunks beforehand and wok them up with olive oil, and some garlic and onion powder, maybe a little hot sauce. Then, add the mushrooms when the chicken is nearly done.

-JD

[kalquessa]

Cousin of Augustus.

LOL!

I don't know from roux and bechamels because I am not cool enough. I should take a cooking class one of these days so that I know more about the actual cooking beyond "This is what my sister said to do." Heh.

I am terribly, terribly lazy, and roasting, with the bones, is too much work for something that also involves chopping up other ingredients. The only time I roast chicken is when I plan to serve it as-is, on the bone, because then I don't have to do the work of shredding it and everything.

[jd3000]

I don't know from roux and bechamels because I am not cool enough.

Heh, well a roux ("roo") is the flour and butter mixture, really all you need for a roux is a starch and a fat, but the above are used most often for consistency and flavor. Cooking the starch in the fat allows it to open up and absorb some of the liquid and make a thick sauce.

Bechamel is the snooty name for your general "white sauce", one of the four French "mother sauces", from which many other sauces descend.

You must start watching Good Eats, because geek + cooking = extreme ruleness.

-JD

[kalquessa]

Ah! Excellent, I know snooty lingo! Good Eats sounds fun, alas for the no tv. Do you know if they have stuff online? Maybe I should look them up on youtube.

[jaxomsride]

If you don't do it that way all the flour goes into horrible lumps!
That's a great recipe!

[kalquessa]

I figured it was something like that. It really is an awesome recipe, so tasty!

[traycer_]

Yummy! Sound great!

[rose_in_shadow]

Would the deliciousness of said casserole be entirely diminished by using 2% milk instead of whole? I hate having to buy a whole carton of something that I'm only going to use a little bit of... and I have no idea what else to use whole milk for.

[jd3000]

Um, everything. :-D

But my family used nothing but 1% milk for everything dairy-related and everything turned out fine.

Addendum, because I'm sure Marie will chastise me: If you're using any sort of milk and adding butter to the sauce, you're by far replacing all the milkfat the dairy might have subtracted. :-D

-JD

[kalquessa]

I suppose, if you must. *sulks*

Really, though, it's so much better with whole, and if you buy one of the little skinny cartons (a quart? I think?) that's exactly four cups, so you won't have any leftover. But it probably wouldn't make as big a difference as I'm making out. *grin*

[rose_in_shadow]

if you buy one of the little skinny cartons (a quart? I think?) that's exactly four cups, so you won't have any leftover

Heh. Well, since I'll probably be cutting the recipe in half (I'm single; even a half recipe will load me with food for a week), I will have left over milk.

Anyhoo, thanks for your (reluctant) permission to use 2%. :D