I’d wanted to make this Sam Sifton chicken tetrazzini from the NYT mag ever since it was published last fall, even though it’s not like any tetrazzini I’m familiar with, that usually involve creamy white sauce and crumbs on top. It includes a chili-based sauce with dried red chiles and chicken broth and milk and cheese, and there’re roasted poblanos and dried procini mushrooms in it, too. The presence of all those peppers is what made me want to make the dish, because it reminded me of a casserole I used to make when I was the head cook at the co-op women’s dorm back in the 1980s, that had noodles – usually macaroni – chicken, cheddar cheese, and black olives, in a tomato sauce seasoned with chili powder. The kids loved it – and so did I, somewhat guiltily. I thought of it as “Tex-Mex” chicken casserole by way of California, because the chili powder and black olives.
So I tried out the NYT mag recipe last night and it totally won the prize for worst kitchen mess, if not ever, then at least since the new kitchen floor’s been installed. I had pre-cooked the chicken, so that part was done. I combined the dry chiles, shallots, garlic, chicken broth (I used vegetable), and milk in a pot and simmered it till the veggies softened. It started to curdle a little bit, but I figured it would smooth out since the next step was to dump everything into a blender and whir it up and add the cheese. I’m trying not to use my food processor since the blade is included in the big Cusinart recall, and anyways, the recipe clearly said to “pour into a blender”. So I did, and even though I held it down, the lid blew off and spewed a disgusting mixture that looked exactly like the winter time puke you see on the street in Wisconsin, where the puker had eaten pizza and beer before they hurled. All.Over. On the stove. On the front of the cabinets. On the mixer. On the salt canister and pepper grinder on the pass thru. On the back splash. On me. On my glasses.
So I wiped everything up, finished processing the sauce in batches, and got the casserole assembled. Even transferring it to the baking dish was a mini-disaster because some bits flopped out and made another mess to clean up. It also turned out to be not that easy to serve or to eat, made with spaghetti – a shorter noodle would have been more manageable.
I was making granola and doing a load of my wash on gentle cycle, partially dry in the dryer and then hang (mostly work) clothes at the same time. At least I didn’t burn the granola or end up leaving the clothes in the dryer too long and having to iron them. So there’s a mercy.
I wish I’d made my Tex-Mex casserole, instead, food snobbery be damned.
NYT chicken tetrazzini
And I know, I’m whining, it’s all first world problems. I think I felt extra sorry for myself because the night before, I’d opened a box from King Arthur Flour, to find the bag of flour broken open inside. I usually don’t order their flour online, because it’s heavy and I can buy it in stores here in Madison, but I’m a member of their Baker’s Club and get free shipping, and thought, “what the heck, it’s easy – get the flour delivered to my door”. Ha. King Arthur is so nice – I called and they’re sending a replacement bag. All I had to do was wipe the flour off the other stuff and it was fine – too bad the King Arthur folks couldn’t come do that for me, too.
