Cheese Platter Cheese and Chicken Casserole

Cheese platters are like the theater and you my friend, are the director. Your job is to entertain and indulge your audience. Who doesn’t love discovering a new cheese? This is your opportunity to share your discoveries with guests. I always go for variety in taste and texture. At least one mild, one medium and one strong. At least one soft-ripened (brie, camembert, triple crème, fromage d’affinois) or surface-ripened (these are the delicate, sometimes tiny ones with the soft skin, like cabécou). At least two semi-soft (i.e., havarti), semi-hard (cheddar) or washed rind (morbiere) and maybe a fresh (chévre) or a blue (roquefort). Anyway. I digress and believe me chickadee, I could go on about cheese!

If you put out a holiday cheese platter and are now left with a whole slew of cheeses and you’re all cheese-and-crackered out, this is a good way to use them up. The cheese sauce is made with a light roux to smooth out the melting, so it should work with most of the common cheese platter players. I chose a smoked Vermont cheddar, a semi-soft aged chèvre from Holland and a soft-ripened triple crème from France.

Use what you’d like for this recipe. The only guideline I’d recommend is to use two semi-soft or semi-hard cheeses and one soft-ripened cheese to get the right saucy consistency. I wouldn’t recommend using Jarlsberg because it tends to get stringy as it melts.

Cheese Platter Cheese and Chicken Casserole – serves 2 – 4

2 C dry short pasta or shells
2 C cooked chicken meat, loosely chopped
1 T butter
1 T flour
3/4 C milk
3 oz smoked cheddar or smoked gouda, finely diced
3 oz milder semi-soft or semi-hard cheese, (fontina, gruyère, emmentaler, havarti, etc.), finely diced
3 oz soft-ripened cheese (brie, camembert, etc) rind removed
Salt to taste
Freshly ground pepper

Cook the pasta as directed.

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

In a small saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. When it bubbles, add flour and stir with a whisk for about 2 minutes until light golden brown. Gradually add milk, stirring with whisk for about 3 – 4 minutes until the sauce is smooth and begins to thicken. Add cheeses and stir with a wooden spoon until melted. Season the sauce to taste.

Combine chicken and pasta in a small casserole dish. Pour sauce over the mixture and toss to coat. Top with a few turns of freshly ground pepper. Bake for 35- 45 minutes until the top is golden brown and the sauce is bubbling.

Ingredient Origins: Butter – Maine, Flour – Vermont, Milk – Vemont, Smoked Cheddar – Vermont, Chèvre – Holland, Triple crème brie – France