Smoked Chicken Pesto Stuffed Shells

Here’s a simple yet tasty dish that utilizes one of the most versatile of all smoked foods, smoked chicken. 

Unlike pork and beef, chicken doesn’t really have a long history as a smoked food.  Historically, it was boiled, but at some point in the early Twentieth Century, someone got the bright idea to throw a chicken into a smoker, and the results were fantastic.  Unlike tough cuts like beef brisket and pork shoulder, which need a lot of low and slow cooking to become tender, chicken is natively tender, unless of course you overcook it.  It’s also very moist and porous, which means it takes on smoke flavor readily, and doesn’t need a long time to cook.  I usually buy lots of chicken when it is on sale, smoke it, and freeze the pieces for later cookery.  You can find more info on my yard bird smoking technique here.

Anywho, for this dish, I’m utilizing some of the smoked chicken I’ve pulled from the freezer and thawed.  You could of course make this dish with chicken you’ve cooked any old way (hopefully not boiled, though), but I think the smoke flavor combined with the cream cheese and other ingredients really makes this dish sing. 

Smoked Chicken Pesto Stuffed Shells

2 Cups Smoked Chicken, Diced

6 Oz Mushrooms, Sliced

1 Medium Onion, Diced

3 Tablespoons Olive Oil

2 or so Cloves Garlic, Minced

1 Package (8 oz) Cream Cheese

1 Cup Freshly Grated Parmesan cheese

1 Cup Freshly Grated Asiago cheese

1/2 Cup Prepared Pesto

Salt and Pepper to taste

12 or so Jumbo Pasta Shells, Cooked Just Under Al Dente

Parsley, for garnish

Start water boiling for your pasta shells.  Preheat Oven to 350˚F.  Sauté mushrooms and onion 

until cooked and just start to turn golden.  

Add minced garlic and cook one minute more. 

Meanwhile, tend to that chicken breast.  

This recipe uses a breast that I’ve presmoked.  You can use whatever you like, but the smoke flavor really makes the dish.  Dice the fully smoked breast up into small pieces. 

Add the chicken and the cooked mushrooms and onions to a food processor.  Pulse a couple times to chop everything up.  Add to this the cream cheese, 3/4 cup of the Parmesan, 3/4 Cup of the Asiago and the Prepared Pesto.  Salt and Pepper to taste.  

Pulse a few times until everything is mixed up, but don’t do too much, or you’ll end up with a paste.  We still want some small chunks of chicken and mushroom in there. 

Cook your pasta shells until they are firm but not cooked through.  This will help them hold their shape and stay together while you stuff them.  They will finish cooking in the oven. 

Stuff the shells with a tablespoon or two of the mixture.  

Place the shells in a greased casserole dish.  

Cover with foil.  

Bake 30 Minutes at 350˚F, then remove foil and dust the shells with the remaining Parmesan and Asiago.  Increase temp to 450˚F and bake another few minutes, until cheese topping melts and starts to turn golden brown.  

Remove from oven and serve. 

These go great by themselves or you can drizzle some red sauce over them, or serve with a side salad, or whatever.  This one’s all about simplicity. 

Until next time,

Chris

  

Welsh Rarebit

You all know I love cheese, so how could I not love Welsh Rarebit: an utterly British dish of toasty bread slathered with rich melted cheese thinned with ale then broiled.  I first tried this dish on a pub crawl during a sojourn to London, but I’d heard of it years earlier, when I was a kid.  I still remember the place I first heard of Welsh Rarebit—it was of course the place where one usually hears of Welsh Rarebit:  The Gomer Pyle TV Show. 

Admit it, you watched it.  We all did.  We didn’t know any better back then.  Well, there was this one episode where Gomer started sleepwalking and doing crazy things (well, crazy for Gomer) like yelling at his Sergeant and generally not being himself.  It turned out that the cause of all this was that he had been eating Welsh Rarebit every day for dinner.  Apparently there’s been a long-standing belief that eating Welsh Rarebit causes strange dreams. 

Where did that come from?  How could melted cheese on toast cause strange dreams?

To the Internet, Robin!  Turns out that there was a very weird comic strip in the early part of the 1900s that was called Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend.  This strip, which prefigured The Far Side by three-quarters of a century, presented the bizarre, surreal dreams of people who had eaten Welsh Rarebit before bed. 

This strip was apparently the source of the notion that Rarebit causes weird dreams.  The author of the strip (Winsor McCay) originally drew a one-shot comic strip called Dream of the Tobacco Fiend.  His Editor liked it, but apparently he didn’t want to offend the tobacco fiends of the world, thus he suggested McCay replace the word ‘tobacco’ with something completely innocuous and innocent.  Their choice:  Welsh Rarebit.  I have to admit that the juxtaposition is funny because of its absurdity.  But of course Rarebit got a weird reputation ever since.

Well, reputation be dammed!  This is a delicious dish that one shouldn’t miss. 

Welsh Rarebit, dispite the ‘Welsh’ moniker, is not from Wales (my ancestral homeland, no less) but in fact the dish is quintessentially English.  The name may have originally been ‘Welsh Rabbit;’ it is speculated that this was either a slight against the Welsh in that they couldn’t afford a real rabbit, and that they had a supposed fondness for cheese. 

  

Welsh Rarebit

4 Tablespoons Butter

1/4 Cup Flour

2 Tablespoons Dry English Mustard

1/2 Teaspoon Cayenne Pepper

2 Tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce

12 Oz Beer (Preferably an English Ale or Bitter)

2 Cups Cheddar, Grated

3 or more Slices of Crusty Bread, Toasted

Melt Butter in a large skillet.  

When it has melted, sift in the flour 

and allow to cook for a couple of minutes.  Add the Cayenne 

and the English Mustard.  

Add the Worcestershire Sauce 

and then the beer.  

Allow this to simmer for a few minutes, 

then add your cheese.  

Stir over medium heat until the cheese is melted. 

Toast your bread slightly (not too dark, as it’s going back under the broiler in a moment with the cheese)  You can use slices of ‘white bread’ if you want, but I find some nice slices of baguette or Italian bread work best, and make a nicer presentation. 

Slather the toasted bread with the cheese sauce.

Make sure you cover the tops of the bread slices completely.  

Place the slices under the broiler.  Keep a close eye on them.  Pull ‘em out when just start to turn golden brown and bubbly. 

.

Serve immediately, but watch out, they’ll be hot. 

Until next time,

Sweet dreams….

Croque Monsieur

I think we'll declare this month Melt-y March, and not just because of the snow (which is now melting) that appeared unseasonably late here in Texas, but because we will feature two delicious melted cheese dishes this month, one French, one British.  First up, the French.

At its heart, a Croque Monsieur is basically a ham and cheese sandwich, but it is a ham and cheese sandwich gussied up with the culinary excess that only the French can provide.  It is succulent, savory and delicious.  If you've never had one right out from under the broiler, you simply must try it.  Magnifique!

Croque Monsieur


4 Tablespoons Butter
3 Tablespoons All Purpose Flour
2 Cups Milk
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 Teaspoon Nutmeg
1 Teaspoon Herbs de Province
1/4 Cup Dijon Mustard
6 Oz Gruyere, Grated
4 Slices Country Ham
4 Slices Swiss Cheese (Emmental)
8 Slices Sandwich Bread

Melt Butter in a large skillet.

Meanwhile, gently heat your milk in a sauce pan

Sift in the Flour into the skillet with the butter

Stir until combined.

Add your hot milk

Stir into no clumps of flour remain.

Add the salt, nutmeg and Herbs de Province.

Add 4 ounces of the Gruyere.

Remove from heat and stir until cheese melts.

Add a heaping teaspoon of the Dijon mustard and stir.

Meanwhile toast your bread slices and remove the crust.

Slather four of the slices with Dijon mustard.

Top these four with a slice of ham.

Top that with a slice of the Swiss Cheese

Top those with the rest of the bread.  You've now got four pretty decent ham sandwiches.  But, we're now gonna go one step further.  Make 'em a little more decadent.   Slather the tops of each sandwich with a generous helping of the cheese sauce you made in the skillet.

Top this with the rest of the grated Gruyere.

Turn on your broiler and place the sandwiches under it.  Broil until the cheese is melted and starting to turn golden brown.

Pull out of the oven and admire.

Serve immediately!

Until next time,

Bon Appetit!

Chris

Ham and Cheese Tart

For December here at An Eat’n Man, I’m going to post several recipes whose photos have been sitting on the hard drive for a while—a sort of clearinghouse month this will be.  As I review the blog and my cooking record, I see I’ve got 92 posts on the blog, but over 150 dishes cooked and photographed and sitting on my computer.  I guess I’ve been more of a chef than a blogger, but oh well. 

So, coming up next month I’ll be announcing a big change to the blog.  No, I’m not turning vegan or anything like that.  I’ve just been working on some changes that will improve the appearance of the blog.  More on that in January. 

Anyhoo, this change will mean much of the photography that’s sitting around on the hard drive won’t be usable.  Not a big deal.  Some were fails anyway, and some I will redo to suit the changes to the blog.  But a few I hated to waste, so I’ve selected some of those and will be posting them throughout this month. 

First up is this awesome Ham and Cheese Tart.  I saw one of my fave chefs Bobby Flay make this on the Food Network a while back, so I had to try it.  I changed it a little bit, mainly because he used apricots in his, and I wanted mine to be strictly savory.  Here goes:

Ham and Cheese Tart

2 Sheets Puff Pastry, Thawed. 

3 to 4 Tablespoons coarse Grained Mustard

1/2 to 1 Pound Thinly Sliced Smoked Ham

8 Ounces Shredded White Cheddar

Handful Spinach Leaves

1 Egg

Cracked Black Pepper

Preheat oven to 400˚F

We’ll be using store-bought puff pastry for this.  

The box comes with two sheets, which is perfect for this recipe. 

Thaw the puff pastry according to the directions on the box, then lay it out on a well-floured surface and unfold one sheet.  

Roll it out till it has increased in size by about an inch on all sides.  Transfer it to a parchment paper lined baking sheet pan.   

Next, the mustard.  

I prefer this Maille brand Old Style Whole Grain Dijon, but use whatever you like.  Spread the mustard all over the puff pastry, 

leaving about an inch incovered all around the pastry. 

The ham:  

I prefer to use a nice, full-flavored smoked ham in the dish, but there are lots of other options as well.  Use whichever you like.  Just make sure it is sliced thin. 

Layer it on the puff pastry, again leaving an inch of the puff pastry uncovered all around. 

Crack a little black pepper on the ham.  No salt though, hams are cured and have plenty of salt already in them. 

Sprinkle your shredded white cheddar onto the ham. 

Spread some spinach leaves over the cheese. 

Now, roll out the other sheet of puff pastry to the same size as the first.  Carefully transfer it to the sheet pan, laying it over the first puff pastry exactly. 

Seal up the edges by pressing all around with a fork.  This will give it a lovely decorative edge as well. 

Beat the egg with a few drops of water and brush it into the tart.  

Using a lame or sharp knife, cut a few slits in the top of the tart to let steam escape. 

The Tart, ready to go into the oven.

Pop it in the oven and bake for 30 minutes or so, until the tart is puffed up and golden brown. 

Slice into six or eight slices and serve immediately. 

Enjoy!

Until Next Time,

Ham it up!

Chris