Slow Your (Casse)Role

Let me begin this entry with full disclosure. I stole this idea from Claire. Earlier this week, while killing time before our friend Melanie’s show, Claire whipped up a heck of a chicken casserole. Chicken + carrots + onion + cheese + big crispy bread crumbs. So with a fridge full of discounted biscuits, I tried to think of a way I could morph this recipe to fit the P-bury parameters.

What I came up with was some seared chicken (went with thighs for flavor), broccoli, green onion, and turnips. The turnips were honestly on a whim, and out of curiosity. I decided that this mixture needed to be combined with some sour cream and cheese and topped off with some biscuits. So the assembly began. I par-boiled the turnips to ensure they’d cook through, then mixed this with the chopped broc, onion and chicken that I had browned with a heavy dose of “old world seasoning.” This was put into a casserole dish, upon which I poured a spurious mixture of sour cream and milk. In my head this would become a beautiful thick and tangy white sauce. I finished it off by topping with cheese and some biscuit halves.

I set this to bake at 350, and pulled it out when the top was nice and browned. The result was…a little odd. The sauce didn’t exactly thicken. In fact, is it possible for sour cream to separate? All the individual elements were pretty tasty, but they didn’t gel as I had hoped. Perhaps a couple teaspoons of flour or corn starch in the sour cream mixture would be advantageous.

Going into this, saying I had no idea what I was doing, would have been an understatement. So, lessons learned. And turnips conquered!