First Recipe! Chicken Noodle Casserole

While this recipe certainly isn't a pantheon of cooking, it is delicious. It is a relatively simple combination of the following items that is thickened with a chicken-stock veloute sauce:

4 cups cooked chicken meat, cut into bite-size chunks
12 oz noodles (in this case, fusilli pasta)
1 cup diced onions
2 cups sliced white button mushrooms
3 Tbsp dry sherry
1/2 cup parmigiano-reggiano cheese
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp lemon juice
3/4 cup fresh bread crumbs
8 Tbsp butter

On the whole, I'd give this recipe a 3 out of 5. It was very good, but could have done more. This recipe is from page 119 of "The Yellow Farmhouse Cookbook" by Christopher Kimball, who happens to be the Editor-in-Chief of my favorite cooking magazine, Cooks Illustrated (check it out - it is hands down the best cooking magazine I've ever seen). There's a bit more to it than simply mixing them all together, but if you're curious, you can get the book!

If you're curious, a veloute sauce is one of the five classic French sauces (along with bechamel, espagnole, hollandaise, tomato sauce). It is a light stock (i.e., one where the bones have not been roasted) thickened with a blond roux. It is delicious, if good stock is used.

The most important thing I learned from this recipe is the importance of "mise en place," which is French for "everything in place." It is a basic culinary concept that all of the ingredients of a recipe ought to be ready for cooking before anything hits the heat. I, unfortunately, because I realized I had started to late, failed to comply with this simple rule, and was rushing the entire time. It sucked. I do not recommend.

The second most important thing I learned is that the recipe designed to be a "master" recipe, and hence, could have some variations. E.g., I'd like to add carrots and celery next, making is more like a chicken pot pie with noodles (as an fyi, the Yellow Farmhouse Cookbook recipe for chicken pot pie is SPECTACULAR).

Unfortunately, I don't have pictures because I was so focused on cooking that I didn't actually take any photos. I will *hopefully* have pictures next time (damn now having a good digital camera!). The picture above is a random Google image search.