Béchamel Chicken Bake

There was a time when I had no clue what a chicken baked dish meant. My masi introduced me to the wonderful world of béchamel/white sauce. She was a pro at making European/Continental food. It was under her tutelage that I learnt to make perfect béchamel/white sauce. I take this opportunity to say, ‘thank you’. She gave me her love, her time and taught me to cook this… and so many other dishes. I would never have learnt to cook, or experienced such food, at that age, had it not been for her. From the bottom of my heart, ‘THANK YOU, Jeroo masi!’ 

Over the years, I have added my twists to Masi’s classic/traditional bake, and this is my take on it; a take I have perfected over the years. I hope the recipe works just as beautifully for you as it has for me over the years.

Ingredients: 

1¼ cup / 150 grams all-purpose flour (Maida)
150 - 175 grams butter
½ tablespoon butter (for mushrooms)
600 grams chicken legs (For me, 2 whole legs and 2 drumsticks equalled 600 grams)
200 mils chicken stock (room temperature)
650 mils milk (room temperature)
200 grams mushrooms, cut into quarters
200 grams tin golden-corn niblets
4 -5 green chilies, finely chopped
½ - ¾ tablespoon Mrs Dash (optional - a seasoning for baked dishes)
150 grams + 150 grams cheese
Salt to taste
Coarsely ground pepper, to taste   

Method: 

1. In a large vessel (or a pressure cooker), add the chicken, 600-700 mils water, salt, and pepper.
2. Cook (or pressure cook) until done.
3. Drain the chicken from the stock. Reserve 200 mils stock. (Add a squeeze of lime, and sip on the extra stock while you cook 😉)
   
   
   
   
   
4. Shred the boiled chicken (discard bones). Keep aside. 
   
   
   
   
   
5. Grate the cheese. Keep aside. 
   
   
   
   
   
6. Heat ½ tablespoon butter in a skillet, sauté mushrooms for 2 minutes, on HIGH heat, tossing them constantly. Remove from the skillet and keep aside. 
   
   
   
   
   
7. In a large thick-bottomed pan heat butter. 
   
8. Add all-purpose flour and stir constantly until you smell a nice toasty aroma. (We want the flour to roast well and lose its rawness but, at the same time we do NOT want it turning colour) 
   
   
   
   
   
9. Lower heat and gradually add the chicken stock, all the while stirring continuously to ensure the sauce does not turn lumpy. 
10. Gradually add the milk (one cup at a time); keep stirring on LOW flame till you get a smooth, thick white sauce. The sauce should thickly coat the back of a spoon. 
    
    
    
    
11. Add 150 grams cheese and stir until it becomes one with the white sauce. 
    
    
    
    
    
12. Add the green chillies, Mrs Dash seasoning (optional). 
    
    
    
    
    
13. Add salt and pepper, to taste, as needed. (Check for seasoning, as cheese is salty and the chicken stock, too, contained salt) 
    
    
    
    
14. Add the mushroom, corn niblets and shredded chicken. Stir to mix well. 
    
    
    
    
    
15. Remove the white sauce contents into a large 9-inch Pyrex, or Borosil, baking dish. 
    
    
    
    
    
16. Top with remaining 150 grams of grated cheese. 
    
    
    
    
    
17. Bake for 40-45 minutes at 200 degrees C until the top to gets to a warm golden brown colour. Remove and serve hot!
    
    
    
    
    

 Chef Notes:

1. This quantity usually suffices for a family of 4 or 5 people. If you are cooking for 2, I suggest you halve the quantity. With regard to quantity, do not go by the photographs posted; I had tripled the quantity as I was cooking for a potluck party.
2. Usually, béchamel is made with milk but to give the bake added flavour, somewhere along the years, I began adding a wee bit of stock to it. You may go the traditional route if you so prefer - omit the stock and add the same quantity of milk, instead. 
3. As the roasted flour is hot, the milk and stock must be at room temperature. To a large extent, that will prevent the formation of lumps when you stir the liquids into the roux. 
4. IMPORTANT: Unless you are extremely well versed with the cooking of the white sauce, always ensure you add the stock/milk and stir the white sauce on LOW flame. This, too, ensures the sauce does not turn lumpy. 
5. Please feel free to adjust the number of green chillies to suit your tolerance of spice. The same goes for cheese. If you prefer a cheesier bake, feel free to add more (or less) cheese. 
6. Variation to Point No: 16 - Instead of sprinkling grated cheese on top of the bake, I sometimes use Cheeseling gravel (crushed cheeseling biscuits). Give it a try, it works beautifully. 
   
7. If you do not have the 'Mrs Dash' seasoning, just go with salt, pepper, and green chillies. Trust me, that’ll work just as well. You may substitute Mrs Dash with a few shakes of bottled mixed dried herbs. 
8. Please don’t panic if your white sauce has a few lumps. Take the vessel off the stove, use a motorized hand blender, and give the white sauce a whiz to smoothen it. Voila! Smooth sauce 😉 Put it back on the LOW flame and stir continuously until the sauce thickens to the desired consistency. 
9. Depending on the oven, sometimes, the base of the bake-dish will cook and begin to bubble while the cheese on top fails to brown. In the event of this happening, feel free to turn on the grill/broiler mode of the oven for a few minutes to brown the top of the bake-dish.
10. You may share the direct blog-link of the recipe/s but do NOT publish my recipes and my photographs on any blog-site or website without my explicit consent or attempt to pass off my recipe/s as your own. You will be held accountable for plagiarism.

Some more photographs:

Chicken a la King with Butter Egg-Drop Rice

This is a recipe very close to my heart. At the age of 15, this was the first ‘Béchamel sauce’ recipe I attempted. While my mum can barely boil an egg *rolls eyes*, my mums’ sister from another mother, my masi (Jeroo), is an excellent cook. It was under her guidance that I learnt to make the basic Béchamel sauce. For this dish, the basic Béchamel sauce is elevated into a Béchamel Cream Sauce. An important point I need to stress on is, every element of this dish is to be cooked in butter. Please do not bastardize this gem by using alternate mediums. 

Ingredients:

1 kilo chicken, cut into 8 pieces

4-5 celery leaves (optional)

125 grams all purpose flour / maida

125 grams butter

1½ tablespoons butter (to sauté capsicums and mushrooms)

2 green bell peppers / capsicum, deseeded and diced

1 packet button mushrooms (200 grams), quartered

4½ cups chicken stock (240 ml = 1 cup)

200 grams cream (I used Amul)

Ingredients for Butter Egg-drop Rice:

1¼ cups long grain basmati rice, washed (do not soak)

6 tablespoons + 1 tablespoon butter

2 eggs

Salt to taste 

Method:

1. Boil the chicken pieces in 6 cups of water with celery leaves and salt.
   
2. When chicken is cooked, remove from stock and shred it.
3. Discard celery leaves from the stock. Strain the stock and reserve.
   
   
   
   
4. Heat 1 tablespoon butter in a non-stick pan. Sauté the diced green bell pepper, cook till just about done. Do not overcook the bell peppers. Remove the bell peppers from the pan and keep aside.
   
   
   
   
5. Add an extra ½ tablespoon butter to the butter remaining in the pan. Add mushrooms, sauté on high heat. Allow the moisture released by the mushrooms to evaporate completely. Sauté for half a minute more. Remove mushrooms into a plate and keep aside.
   
   
   
   
6. Remove the cream from the carton, gently smoothen it with a fork or a small whisk. Keep aside.
   
   
   
   
7. In a large, heavy bottomed vessel, melt 125 grams butter.
   
   
   
8. When the butter melts, lower the heat, add all-purpose flour (maida) and sauté continuously till you get a nice toasty aroma (do not burn or brown the flour).
   
   
   
   
9. Shut off the flame and take the vessel off the stove.
10. Gradually add 4½ cups hot chicken broth to the flour, stirring all the time, with a whisk or a wooden spoon, to ensure there are no lumps.
    
    
    
    
11. Put the vessel back on the stove, on very low heat; keep stirring, all the while until it thickens. Keep stirring till it heats through and the desired consistency (thickness) is achieved.
    
    
    
    
12. Add the smoothened cream and continue stirring on low fire until the cream is well blended into the sauce.
    
    
    
    
13. Check seasoning; add salt if needed.
14. Add the shredded chicken, sautéed mushrooms and green bell peppers; simmer for a minute, or two, and remove from fire.
    
    
    
    
15. Serve with buttered egg-drop rice.
    
     

Method for Butter Egg-drop Rice:

15. In a small wok melt 1 tablespoon butter. Add eggs, salt to taste and scramble the eggs to a tight, overcooked consistency. You will know the eggs have reached the desired overcooked consistency when you see them go crumbly, like ‘egg-drops’. Keep aside.
    
    
    
16. In a large thick bottomed vessel melt 6 tablespoons butter.
    
    
    
    
17. Add the washed rice.
18. Add 2½ cups water and cook on high flame until the level of the water reaches the level of the rice. At this point, lower heat, check for seasoning and add salt, if required.
19. Close the vessel with a lid and continue cooking the rice, on very low flame, until done.
20. After shutting off the stove, gently, but quickly, fluff up the rice with a fork. Once again, cover with a lid and keep the cooked rice aside for 15 to 20 minutes.
    
    
    
    
21. Uncover the vessel after 15-20 minutes and spread out the rice in a large platter. Allow it to cool. Sprinkle the scrambled eggs over the rice and gently, with a fork, mix the rice with the egg-drops. Mix well but carefully so as to ensure the grains of rice do not break (and that is why we allow the rice to cool a bit).
    
    
    
    
22. Depending on how you plan to reheat the rice, empty the rice in a vessel (stove top heating) or into a microwave bowl.
23. Serve with the Chicken a la King sauce.
    
    

Chef Notes: 

1. If you have flavourful chicken stock and shredded chicken (from that stock) in the fridge/freezer, feel free to use it for this recipe. You need not make the stock and shredded chicken from scratch. The main thing to remember is that both, the stock and the chicken, should be devoid of any spicy, peppery flavour.
2. The Béchamel sauce should be thick (spoon-coating-consistency); not blobby and lumpy. If it’s too thick, feel free to add some extra stock to adjust the consistency.
3. Do not stir the Béchamel sauce on high heat, unless you are an absolute pro at it because it is sure to turn lumpy. Always, patiently, cook it on very low heat.
4. In case the Béchamel sauce goes lumpy, use an electric hand blender to smoothen it.
5. Do not add extra salt until you blend in the cream because the stock used contains salt and the butter used will also contribute to the salt factor. Check seasoning after adding cream and add salt only if needed.
6. While I hate overcooked scrambled eggs, this recipe demands it hence go all out and overcook them. 😉 If you aren’t a fan of eggs, please go with plain Butter Rice. That, too, works just as beautifully. 
7. Check the rice for salt only when the water in the rice reduces. Butter is salty which is why we do not add salt right at the start. 
8. This is a French dish, hence, always made in butter. According to the ‘Bawi’ in me, cooking it in any medium other than butter is sacrilege.
9. In no Universe am I a professional photographer and food that is white is one of the most difficult to photographs (with regard to lighting). The exposure has to be adjusted or the light messes up the pics big time. I have edited the pics to the best of my ability to show you exactly what the dish looks like in terms of it’s white colour and silken texture. No filters have been used. I will not lie; I struggled a great deal to capture this delicious dish and I do feel I was unable to do it full justice.
10. You may share the direct blog-link of the recipe/s but do NOT publish my recipes and my photographs on any blogsite or website without my explicit consent or attempt to pass off my recipe/s as your own. You will be held accountable for plagiarism.
    
    Some more photographs and videos...
    
    

Butter, Salt and Eggs