Here’s a little something I created for dinner last night. It’s penne pasta with grilled chicken and steamed broccoli topped with an improvised garlic Mornay sauce. I call it ‘a la Huntington’ after the charming little street outside my kitchen.

The idea here is to make a garlicy cheese sauce that has the consistency (and apparently the look) of Elmer’s Glue, maybe just a bit thicker if you like it cheesier. The sauce is what ties it all together so take great care that it is done correctly and don’t scorch the milk. The broccoli should offer some nice texture to the dish and the chicken should be well seasoned so that each morsel is a tasty burst of savory flavor against the creamy richness of the sauce.

Ingredients

Sauce:

2 Cups of Whole Milk
1 Bay Leaf
1 Large Slice of Onion
Several Cloves of Garlic (amount depends on your level of tolerance, I use about 6)
Hard Mozzarella Cheese
1 Tablespoon of Butter
6 Tablespoons of Flour
Salt and Pepper to taste

Pasta:

8-12 oz. of Penne Pasta
3/4 lb. Boneless Skinless Chicken
Chopped Broccoli
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Dry White Wine
Herbes de Provence
Salt and Pepper to taste

The first thing you have to do is get the sauce started. This sauce uses a bechamel base and if you want it to be really flavorful, it’s going to have to sit for a couple of hours. Start by heating up the milk with a slice of onion, bay leaf, some crushed cloves of garlic, and salt and pepper to taste. The true recipe calls for mace or cloves, but I’ve had questionable results using those. I also add a pinch of herbes de Provence simply because I add a pinch of herbes de Provence to everything. Don’t forget to stir!

Heat the mixture up until it’s just about to boil then remove it from the heat and let it sit for a couple hours. This is when, in the words of Emril Lagasse, the sauce “gets happy”.

In the meantime you can sit back a have a sip of Campari to stimulate your appetite. After all, it’s Friday night.

You might also think of getting the chicken ready at this time. Set the chicken out in the pan you’re going to broil it in and splash a little white wine on it. I know Charles Shaw is cheap, but don’t go crazy; just get it wet so that the seasoning sticks to it. Season both sides with salt and pepper, some herbes de Provence, and whatever other seasoning you like. Then stick it in the fridge until you’re ready to cook it.

When the sauce is done getting happy, throw the chicken in the broiler and get your pasta water boiling. You can even use the same saucepan to steam the broccoli as cook the pasta since broccoli steams pretty darned fast. You’ll want to turn the chicken once to make sure both sides get cooked.

Now back to the sauce. Poor the mixture into a blender, food processor, or Magic Bullet and strain out all the goodies. Put the garlic back in and blend the mixture until the garlic is mixed completely.

Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat and slowly mix in the flour to make a roux. Make sure you don’t screw up the consistency here. Once you’ve got all the flour mixed in start whisking in the garlic milk mixture. Get all the lumps out, then grate the Mozzarella into the mixture. How much Mozzarella will depend on how cheesy you like it and what consistency you want. I’m just starting to experiment with cheese so I probably don’t use as much as you would.

This is an improvised Mornay because a true Mornay would use Gruyere cheese and would be thickened with two egg yolks. If I decide to try it with a true Mornay, I’ll let you know if it works. Or you could try it and tell me.

Take the sauce off the heat once you’ve got it up to a simmer with the cheese mixed in. Pull your chicken out of the broiler, strain your pasta and take the broccoli out of the steamer. Cut the chicken into one inch pieces and mix with the pasta and broccoli. Serve on a plate and top with the sauce.

The last steps there happen pretty quickly so make sure you’re ready to get it all done at once. Also, make sure you taste the sauce before you add the cheese and reseason if necessary. And for the love of god don’t overcook the broccoli, the texture is half the reason it’s in the dish. If you do everything right, your girlfriend will be very happy with you after returning from a long day at the photo lab.

• Festivus Gastronomicus Rating: Crapicus

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 16th, 2006 at 4:47 pm and is filed under Chez Moi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.