I don’t know how many times I’ve had extra smoked chicken in my refrigerator. Whenever chicken is on sale, I’ll pick some up and put it in the freezer. Then, whenever my husband lights up the grill to smoke something, I’ll thaw some chicken and throw it on the grill, thinking we can eat it all week. But who wants to eat the same thing night after night?
So here was my recent dilemma: What are some good ways to use smoked chicken? There’s chicken salad, of course. And stir-fry chicken and chicken enchiladas and chicken chef salads. But I was looking for something different.
Anne BralyI surfed the Internet for about an hour, longing for a good use for a bagful of smoked legs and thighs. Then, when I was about to call it quits, along came a few ideas for smoked chicken lasagna. Thinking that might make a nice change from the norm, I combined elements from different recipes and made it my own.
This is not the kind of dish that you can come home from work and throw together for dinner. Like any made-from-scratch lasagna, it takes quite a while to assemble, and it’s best if you do the prep work one night, then finish it the next day. That way you certainly can have it for a weeknight dinner. The key to a tasty finish is to make your own tomato sauce. You can cheat and buy a jar of spaghetti sauce, but don’t. The sauce is worth the trouble.
First, you must debone the smoked chicken. Then chop the onions and Roma tomatoes. If you have one of those wonderful Vidalia onion choppers, both can be chopped in no time. And go out to your herb garden or buy fresh herbs from the grocery store and chop those, too.
The recipe calls for making your own pasta. This is where you can easily cheat. I don’t see a bit of difference between made-from-scratch pasta and store-bought dried pasta when making lasagna, except that buying it pre-made saves so much time. Lasagna has so many flavors going on, the taste of pasta is almost negligible. It’s the texture that counts, and you can get that just as easily from a box of lasagna noodles.
And why smoked chicken rather than boiled or grilled chicken? The taste of the smoked chicken is rich and bursting with flavor. When paired with the tomato sauce infused with fresh herbs and red wine, it’s amazing.
Smoked Chicken Lasagna
For the sauce
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 large onions, chopped
6 garlic cloves, chopped
1/4 cup chopped celery leaves
8 Roma tomatoes, cored and diced
1/4 cup dry red wine
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
2 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
2 tablespoons chopped fresh oregano
1/4 cup chopped sundried tomatoes (in oil)
1 teaspoon sugar
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
For the lasagna
6-8 sheets dried lasagna noodles (enough to fit a 9-by-13-inch pan)
Olive oil, as needed
1/2 pound fresh mushrooms, sliced
2 bunches fresh spinach, stemmed
1 pound smoked chicken, thinly sliced or diced
1 1/2 pounds fresh mozzarella cheese, sliced
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
For the sauce, heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onions and cook until soft, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and celery leaves and cook for 3 more minutes. Stir in the tomatoes and simmer until very soft, 10-15 minutes. Add the rest of the sauce ingredients and simmer for 20-30 minutes. Set aside.
To assemble, heat oven to 350 degrees. Boil noodles till al dente. Saute the mushrooms in 1 tablespoon olive oil until soft. Set aside.
Spray baking pan with nonstick cooking spray. Spread a layer of sauce evenly over the bottom of the pan. Set a layer of lasagna noodles on top of the sauce, then cover with more sauce. Top with layers of spinach, chicken, mushrooms and sliced cheese. Top with a layer of sauce, followed by a layer of pasta. Repeat the layers, finishing the top layer with grated Parmesan cheese. Bake for 1 hour or until the sauce is bubbling and hot. Remove from oven and let set for about 15 minutes before cutting.
On the menu
Now in its third month of business on the Southside, Feed Co. Table and Tavern is exciting guests with a menu filled with new tastes as well as some that we’ve come to love. Owners Dustin Choate (who also owns Tremont Tavern), Miguel and Leslie Morales (owners of 1885 Grill), and Charlie Loomis (former owner of both Greenlife and Elemental) have created a menu that brings Chattanooga’s best burger, the Tremont Tavern burger, across the river to the Southside.
Also, I was so happy to see that Brussels sprouts played such a big role in the menu. The ones served at Feed will make a sprouts lover out of you, even if you’ve always turned your nose up at them. They’re halved, then fried (not battered)and tossed with a maple-bacon glaze. You can get them as a side dish or in a salad with pepper-jelly vinaigrette. Brussels sprouts are also served as an appetizer with artichoke dip.
When I was there for lunch recently, Loomis was in the process of putting his magic touch to some duck legs for the evening’s special. Kind of like duck confit, he said. He was planning on serving it with an apple-cherry sauce. The way he described it made it sound so easy. But I promise you, there’s nothing simple about the flavors Loomis can coax from the simplest of ingredients – duck, apples and cherries. And sprouts. He’s just that good.
Feed is located at 201 Main St.
More restaurant news
Thrillist.com recently wrote about Nashville’s most-important restaurants, and one here in Chattanooga made the list – Puckett’s Grocery. It started in the Nashville area and another location opened in downtown Chattanooga over the summer. I recently dined there for the first time and now understand why it impressed Thrillist.
It’s known for its meats smoked on the premises and, if you want a sample of all of them like I did, order the sliders. Three come to a plate, and you can have them all the same or, for a taste of Puckett’s pride, go with one brisket slider, one pulled pork and one with the smoked chicken. The platter comes with fries and a side or cole slaw for $7.99. A remarkable deal for lunch or dinner.
Puckett’s is located adjacent to the Tennessee Aquarium Plaza in the former location of T.G.I. Friday’s, but you won’t recognize the place. The walls have been razed and in their place one of the best restaurants in Nashville now calls Chattanooga home.
Contact Anne Braly at abraly@timesfreepress.com.