Chicken Tetrazzini

Submitted by shakerpenguin Uploaded by You ate my cat

So I decided to make chicken tetrazzini today. And now, you goons benefit!

Ingredients

• 1 package Pasta (I used thin spaghetti)
• 1 Rotisserie chicken (or you can use fresh, just cook it first)
• 3 Tablespoons butter
• 1/2 Onion
• 1 package mushrooms
• Broccoli
• Frozen Peas
• 1 large container chicken broth (by god, use a decent brand, not campbell's)
• Milk
• Sherry (only use the "cooking wine" if that's ALL you can get)
• Flour
• Thyme (I have fresh from the garden)
• 1 Bay Leaf
• Salt
• Pepper
• Parmesan Cheese

Recipe

First, put a big ol pot of water on the stove for the pasta. I used thin spaghetti, but you can use egg noodles or whatever else you want.

While you're waiting for that, pick over your chicken and shred the meat up into big chunks. And try not to eat too much of it, those rotisserie chickens are fucking good. You should have a pile like this and a carcass:

mmmmmmmmmmm, carcass.....

Also, give a piece to the beggar.

Now, get a large pot and put it over medium-high heat. Chop up your 1/2 onion. Melt the couple tablespoons of butter in the pot, and add the onion and the bay leaf. Cook it for a couple minutes until the onion's transluscent and shit. Then add the mushrooms.

Cook that all together for about 5 minutes, so they get nice and brown. brown = flavor, bitches!

Once they're browned, add your chicken broth (about 2 cups) and about a cup of Sherry.

Chop up your thyme (or not, if you're not cool enough to have fresh). If you do have fresh, by god, take the leaves OFF the stems. Thyme stems are not good eats.

See, chopped leaves and bare stems. Good job, shakerpenguin.

Now, add the thyme to the pot.

It should all look like this now, and since the sherry's in there, let it come up to a boil.

Once it does that, add about 2 cups of milk. You can use cream or something too, but you don't need more fat, hambeast.

Now is a good time to add salt and pepper. Be generous! you have to season for all that bland pasta (which should be almost done by now, DON'T FORGET ABOUT IT! Also, cook them VERY al dente! They will finish cooking in the oven, and mushy noodles suck).

There I am, adding the pepper. See how creamy it is from the milk? That's how it should look. Not really a cream sauce, not just a broth.

Now's the fun part. Take a glass measuring cup or bowl or something like that, and dunk it in there, and get a couple cups or so of the hot liquid. Take about a half a cup to a cup of flour (depending on how thick you want it, you can always add more later).

Whisk that shit in there, till you get a nice gloppy but smooth paste, like this:

Now take that and dump it back into the pot, whisking it all in. Doing it this way will completely prevent lumps! Lumps are just as bad in sauces as they are in breasts.

Let that pot come back up to a boil. Only then will the flour thicken it, so let it be for a minute (at this point, though, you should have turned the heat down to medium-low, to prevent burning)!

Now that that shit can hang out for a while, you have time to cut up the broccoli. Keep them in relatively large pieces, because this is gonna be in the oven for 40 minutes or so, and they'll have plenty of time to cook in there.

We're in the home stretch! Preheat your oven to 350 and spray some Pam or something in a big oven dish.

Once the sauce is thickened to the way you want it (you can do the flour thing again if you want it thicker), add the chicken, some frozen peas, and the broccoli to the pot.

The peas and chicken are under there, I swear.

Mix it all in there. Then add about half a cup of parmesan cheese

And by God, TURN THE HEAT OFF AT THIS POINT! or your cheese will burn. and that's bad.

Dump your pasta into your giant oven dish.

My, what a large amount of noodles you have.

Dump your sauce and everything over the top of that, and mix it all together with a wooden spoon or two or five. This takes time, but it really sucks when you get a pocket of sauceless noodles, let me tell you.

Sprinkle another half a cup of parmesan on top, once it's all mixed. If you have breadcrumbs, throw some of those on top too, that's good. I just didn't have any today.

It should look like this:

Now, pop that baby in the oven!

Mine took about 40 minutes, with the lid on for about 30 of those minutes. You just want the broccoli to cook and everything to amalgamate.

Ta-da! Here's the finished product:

And a hot, sexy close up.

Oooh, don't you just look beautiful, Tetra.

Originally here