Right.
I made Chicken and Lemon Casserole today, and not for the first time my results did not look anything like the picture in the book.
I'm not the best cook but I can follow a set of instructions, the sauce in the recipe book was almost pure white while mine was a pale brown. I really don't see how by following the recipe you can end up with a white sauce.
Some cook books also state that all recipes are tried and tested but I also wonder about that from time to time as I have often had to make modifications to make a recipe work.
Any thoughts?
Book.
Me.
My thought is to use a different cookbook.
There is no way following this recipe would give you a result that looks like that.
That sauce looks to me like a plain bland béchamel sauce made with butter, flour and milk. Its flat like béchamel not glossy like a cornstarch sauce.
Making a sauce with chicken stock will, by definition, get you a sauce that's tannish in color since the stock will be golden.
Plus the recipe itself is dodgy. There's no need to cook the chicken in the stock. You'll get flabby chicken and no fond to season your pan sauce with.
Next time, rub the chicken with lemon juice and salt and pepper it liberally. Sprinkle with herbs of choice.
Bake it in a baking dish until done. Remove chicken and keep warm.
Deglaze the pan with a little white wine and scrape up all the fond (brown bits) and dissolve it in the wine. Add 2 cups or so of chicken stock to the pan, bring it to a boil, turn down to a simmer and reduce by about half. Add lemon juice to taste.
Dissolve some cornstarch in some chicken stock.
Whisk in some of the cornstarch mixture and bring the sauce to a boil again (cornstarch needs heat to thicken). If its not thick enough, add a little more.
Taste for seasoning and adjust if necessary.
This sauce will look a lot like the one you made, probably even darker from the fond.
