Chicken Tetrazzini
Turkey tetrazzini is one of my favorite dishes. I do cook turkey several times a year but don’t get to make this dish with the leftovers too often. When I hit a great sale on bone in chicken breasts this week at a local market I bought a load of them. I de-boned the whole lot and then set most of them in the freezer for use later. I poached a few and made this dish out of some of those poached ones, I also have more poached ones to be made into walnut chicken salad for lunch sandwiches, they are great with the addition of some crisp bacon and tomatoes. This is not a classic tetrazzini, actually I will have to look up a recipe for the classic, this is what I came up with after first trying the dish more than 40 years ago. If you like creamy dishes this one is for you. I usually use a thick spaghetti for the pasta in this but today I only had linguine on hand so substituted it for the spaghetti, it seemed to soak up more of the sauce during the baking phase, I’ll have to remember that next time and adjust the sauce accordingly, no problem tho, I can add a little more cream when it is re-heated. This is comfort food at its finest, add a small salad and you are set for a nice dinner. It also freezes well and re-heats nicely. You can use any kind of poultry for this or try shrimp or crab too.
Chicken Tetrazzini
1 pound poached chicken or turkey, cut into small pieces
5 ounces dry thick spaghetti broken into fourths
1 large stalk celery cut thinly on diagonal
4 ounces of fresh or canned mushrooms, drained if canned
1 tablespoon of drained pimentos
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 cup strong chicken broth, heated to simmering
3 cups half and half, heated to simmering
3 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup flour
2 tablespoons dry sherry
Topping Mixture
1 cup panko bread crumbs, mixed with 3 tablespoons melted butter
1/2 cup parmesan cheese grated, mix with panko/butter mixture, set aside
Put a medium size pot of water on to boil, add 2 teaspoons salt to the water, when water boils add pasta and cook until al dente stage, drain and rinse to cool off and stop cooking, drain and set into a buttered shallow 2 quart baking dish.
In a medium size saucepan, melt the butter. When melted add the celery and saute until it is tender. Sprinkle with the flour and salt and pepper and continue to cook and stir for 3 minutes, add the mushrooms and cook 3 minutes more. Start adding the broth and then the cream, keep stirring or whisking until the mixture thickens up and simmers for 5 minutes, add the pimentos and sherry last, remove from the heat, add the poached chicken to the sauce.
Mix the cream mixture into the pasta in the baking dish, level the top and then sprinkle with the panko, parmesan mixture. Bake in a 350 degree oven until it is bubbling around the edges and the topping is nicely browned.
This looks good. I make my tetrazzini similar. What’s funny is that last week I used a similar recipe to make Tuna Tetrazzini, only I used chopped grape tomatoes instead of mushrooms. i also added parmesan cheese and lemon juice to the sauce. I use homemade breadcrumbs for this dish, hence the question about the crust. hope you had a great 4th
Kuby
Kuby,
This was a nice tetrazzini it had a nice flavor but I did run into a problem with the pasta this time. I was out of the usual thick spaghetti that I usually use for it and substituted some linguine that I had on hand. The linguine seemed to suck up the sauce much more than the spaghetti does, it was good when it first came out of the oven but then seemed to be just drinking up all the sauce as it sat. The next day I was re-heating some for lunch and hit on adding a bit of chicken broth to the bottom of the dish, it worked perfectly and the dish was a little lighter than usual but with a greater chicken taste to it. I use the panko crumbs when I want a really neutral and very crispy texture to whatever I am topping. I think the tomatoes would also add a nice flavor to the dish. I often add some diced tomatoes to my macaroni and cheese when I make it from scratch, kids aren’t too fond of it but most adults are.