Chicken Cacciatore Casserole

Family recipes, whether followed to the tee or slightly altered, are a key ingredient to keeping family traditions alive. They are a major inspiration for many big weekend and holidays meals, and the backbone to my food blog. For this recipe, I’m taking one of my Grandmother’s signature dishes, Chicken Cacciatore (which you can find on my blog by clicking here), and am slightly adjusting some of the measurements to make it into a casserole. Although the presentation and serving size are just a bit different from the original – I made adjustments to better serve a large crowd – the spirit and essence of Grandmom’s dish is still the main highlight. There’s nothing wrong with adding a new twist to a classic family dish, and I’m sure that my Grandmom would approve of this recipe!

Chicken Cacciatore Casserole

4 chicken breasts, cut into 1″ cubes, lightly dusted with flour
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1 tspn rosemary
1 29-oz can tomato sauce (you’ll start off with about 2/3 of the can)
1 large red or green bell pepper (or two small), cut into small pieces
1 cup water
2 tblspn vegetable oil
pinch sugar
salt & pepper to taste
1lb cooked pasta (ziti, mini shells, or whatever you prefer!)
breadcrumbs
*although I don’t prefer them, you can also add mushrooms to this dish

Step 1: The Sauce
In a large frying pan, brown chicken and garlic in oil until chicken is golden brown. Add vinegar and 1/2 cup water. Simmer until liquid evaporates. Add rosemary, about 2/3 of the tomato sauce, remaining water, sugar, salt and pepper. Add peppers, stir together, cover slightly, let cook for 30 minutes.

Note – I’m suggesting that you start off with 2/3 of the tomato sauce. A full can may be too much to add to the pan. You can add in the remaining 1/3 of tomato sauce when stirring in the pasta. The added sauce will pick up the flavors while baking.

Step 2: The Pasta
Preheat oven to 350˚. While the sauce is simmering, cook the pasta until al dente. When pasta is done, mix it together with the sauce in a 13″x9″ baking dish. If the pasta doesn’t get fully coated, add the remaining 1/3 can of sauce, stir together. Sprinkle the top with breadcrumbs. Cover with aluminum foil, place in oven. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until slightly bubbling and hot.

Serve and enjoy!

Baked Pasta, Chicken and Artichoke Hearts in a Lemon Cream Sauce

For this recipe, I’m combining chicken with two of my favorite ingredients – lemons and artichoke hearts – to make a tasty and filling baked pasta casserole, perfect for the spring season. You’ll need a little bit of time to prepare this dish, as it is a multi-step recipe. For the first step, we’ll sauté the artichokes and chicken in a lemon, wine and butter sauce. For the second step, we’ll prepare Lidia Bastianich’s lemon cream sauce recipe. We’ll then combine everything and bake it for 30 minutes. This is a great dish to serve to your family and friends as a beautiful weekend afternoon meal.

Step 1: Sautéing the Chicken and Artichokes

Ingredients:
1/2 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1″ to 2″ pieces
2 tbspn olive oil
2 tbspn butter
1 shallot, minced
zest plus juice of one lemon
1/4 cup white wine
6 oz jar artichoke hearts, roughly chopped

Directions:
Heat oil and butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. When butter melts, add chicken. Sauté until chicken is browned and cooked. Remove chicken, set aside. Add shallots, cook briefly until shallots start to soften. Add wine to deglaze pan. When the liquid starts to reduce, add lemon zest and juice, stir well. Add artichoke hearts and chicken, stir well. Simmer for 10 minutes, or until liquid reduces by half. Remove from heat, set aside.

Step 2: Preparing the Lemon Cream Sauce

Recipe courtesy of Lidia Bastianich
Ingredients:
2 teaspoons kosher salt
3 tablespoons butter
zest plus juice of 2 lemons
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup heavy cream

Directions:
Drop the butter into the large skillet, and set it over medium heat. As the butter melts, scatter in the grated lemon zest; stir it around until sizzling. Pour in the white wine and lemon juice, add the salt, stir, and bring the liquids to a bubbling simmer. Cover the skillet, and let cook for a couple of minutes.

Uncover the pan, and slowly pour in the cream, whisking it steadily into the simmering wine and lemon juice. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the liquids reduce to a saucy consistency you like, 2 or 3 minutes more.

Note: as you are making the lemon cream sauce, you will also start to prepare a pot of boiling water to make 1 lb of pasta (zit, rigatoni or small shells will work well with this dish). As the sauce simmers, start to boil the pasta.

Step 3: Combining the Ingredients

When the pasta is done boiling, you will combine the pasta with the chicken and artichoke mixture (and its reduced liquid) in a 13″x9″ baking dish. Carefully pour the lemon cream sauce over the pasta mixture and stir it until the pasta, chicken and artichokes are all covered with the sauce. Loosely cover the pan with aluminum foil. Bake in a 350˚ over for 30 minutes. Remove from oven, stir, serve and enjoy.

Cream Sauces Part 2: White Eggplant Cream Sauce

In my previous post, I introduced you to the basics of béchamel sauce, along with other sauces that use a béchamel as their starting point (mornay, soubise and velouté sauces, to be exact). I also shared with you the recipe for my red pepper béchamel cream sauce. In this post, I’ll be sharing with you the recipe for my white eggplant cream sauce, which also borrows steps and ingredients from all of the béchamel inspired sauces mentioned above. I’m using 1 cup of diced and floured eggplant, which will help give this sauce a nice, earthy taste and, depending on how long you let it simmer, either a chunky or creamy texture. As the sauce cooks, you’ll notice that the eggplant will start to break down, thus thickening the sauce as it dissolves into the liquid base. You can control how thick or chunky you make the sauce by how long you keep it simmering. The longer you simmer, the thicker and smoother the sauce. Because the sauce could potentially thicken quickly, you’ll want to keep additional broth on hand while cooking, to help thin out the sauce when needed. You can also add additional ingredients to the sauce for extra flavor and texture. I added some peas and cooked bacon to my sauce. Anything from asparagus and ham to mushrooms would work. It’s your sauce…have fun with it!

One additional benefit to this sauce is that you can make it low fat. Whole milk or heavy cream are not necessary, which is a big plus for a cream-based sauce. You can use 2% or 1% milk. Soy milk or almond milk also works well!

White Eggplant Cream Sauce 

2 tbspn unsalted butter
1 tbspn finely chopped shallot
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup eggplant, finely diced and dredged in flour
1 cup milk (your preference of 2% or 1% milk, or even soy milk or almond milk will work)
1/2 cup broth (chicken or vegetable), plus additional if needed
1 tbspn grated parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste
dash of nutmeg

Additional ingredients that I used in my version:
2 tbspn frozen peas
2 tbspn cooked bacon pieces

Heat a large, non-stick pan over medium heat. Add the butter. When melted, add the shallots, cook for 30 seconds. Add the garlic, stir together until fragrant (about another 20-30 seconds). Next, add the diced and floured eggplant, stir so that all of the pieces are coated with the butter, shallots and garlic (at this point, it will appear that the eggplant has soaked up all of the butter. When the liquid is added and the eggplant cooks, it will release all of the buttery flavor that it first absorbed).

Next, add the milk and the broth, stir together. Bring the heat down to low and stir occasionally. The eggplant will gradually dissolve into the liquid, creating a creamy sauce. Add the parmesan cheese, salt, pepper and nutmeg. Stir together, then taste to see if additional seasonings are needed. You can also add additional cheese, but be aware that this will cause the sauce to thicken even more. Continue to check on the sauce and stir for about 5 minutes. At this point the sauce is heated enough to be served, and you have control of how thick you want to make the sauce. The longer you keep it on the heat, the thicker and creamier it will become. You can (and most likely will) add additional broth to the sauce as needed to thin it out a bit. Be sure to just add a little bit at a time so that the sauce does not become too thin and runny.

You can stir in additional cooked ingredients a few minutes before serving. I added two tablespoons of frozen peas and two tablespoons of cooked bacon bits, stirring them into the sauce a few minutes before serving.

Serve the sauce with penne.

Cream Sauces Part 1: Red Pepper Cream Sauce

Without a doubt, one of the most popular cream-based sauces used in Italian-American cuisine is the classic alfredo sauce. Named after Roman restauranteur Alfredo DiLelio, this rich and creamy sauce is the perfect combination of butter, cream and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. For those who are more health-conscious these days, it is also a heavy and decadent meal that is often referred to as ‘a heart attack on a plate’ and should only be enjoyed every so often. But if you are a fan of cream sauces, there are less fattening options, and many of them start with the timeless French-inspired white béchamel sauce.

For this post, I’ll be sharing with you the basic steps for a classic béchamel sauce, along with other popular cream sauces that use a béchamel as its backbone, including my very own Red Pepper Cream Sauce. In my upcoming post, I’m going to take it even further with a hybrid combination of béchamel-based sauces mixed with sautéed eggplant. But first, let’s start off with the basics of béchamel.

According to thekitchn.com, béchamel is known as one of the classic French “mother sauces” that form the basis of much French cuisine. It is a simple, relatively low-fat  sauce that uses just a few basic ingredients (equal parts unsalted butter and flour, hot milk, salt and fresh ground pepper) which are cooked until smooth and creamy. The sauce can then be used in a variety of dishes, from soufflés and pastas to a creamy topping for vegetables. It is also a key ingredient in the popular Greek dish, Moussaka.

The first step to a classic béchamel is to make a roux, which is a combination of equal parts melted butter and flour combined in a sauce pan until it makes a light bubbling paste (making sure not to let it brown while cooking). Next, you stir in hot milk, bring to a boil and continue to stir until it thickens to your liking. Season with salt and pepper, and your béchamel is ready to go. You can control the consistency of your béchamel by adjusting your ingredients accordingly. A light roux (one tablespoon of flour and butter per serving of milk) would make for a thin sauce. Two tablespoons of each would make for a slightly thicker sauce, and three tablespoons of each would make for an extra thick sauce. You can also control the amount of milk in your béchamel.

From here, you can add additional ingredients to your béchamel to make more flavorful cream sauces:
• A mornay sauce has shredded or grated cheese added to it. Mornay is a nice alternative to an alfredo sauce. It has a similar cheesy taste and consistency, but is lighter because you are using milk instead of heavy cream.
• A soubise sauce is a béchamel with the addition of puréed onions and serves well with vegetables and meats, such as roasted pork and baked chicken.
• A velouté sauce replaces milk with a stock as its primary liquid (such as vegetable, chicken, beef or shellfish), and serves well with vegetables, chicken and seafood.

Now that we have the basic béchamel and some of it’s influenced sauces covered, let’s move on to my Red Pepper Cream Sauce.

Red Pepper Cream Sauce
Makes 2 cups

2 tbspn unsalted butter
2 tbspn flour
1-1/2 cups 2% milk*, heated (heating the milk in the microwave for one minute will work well)
6 oz roasted red peppers, puréed
salt and pepper to taste

*2% milk gives a nice consistency. You can also use whole or 1% milk if that is what you have on hand. The lighter the fat content, the thinner the sauce.

In a medium sauce pan over medium heat, melt the butter until it starts to bubble, but does not brown. Add the flour to the melted butter, about 1/2 tbspn at a time, stirring with a wooden spoon as you add. Once you add all of the flour, stir until it forms a roux, or a golden, bubbly texture that looks like an egg batter. If your roux is too thin, you can add an extra pinch of flour. Again, be sure not to let it brown. If the roux does start to brown, remove the pan from the heat and continue to stir. Add the milk a little at a time, whisking thoroughly as you add. The first  bit of milk will turn the roux into a pasty consistency. As you add and whisk more milk the texture will become creamy. Continue a constant whisk until the mixture is creamy and all of the roux is incorporated into the milk. Next, you want to slowly add and mix in the puréed peppers. Taste as you add the peppers. You may find that an amount less than the 6 ounces is to your taste. Once you have the peppers whisked in, season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serve over ziti or penne and enjoy!

For step-by-step photos on how to prepare a béchamel sauce, including photos on how your roux should look, click here. The measurements on the link are a bit different than mine, but the photos are good references.