The fifth in a continuing series of frugal recipes mostly from my grandmother. Today's recipe is a casserole my mother learned when we moved to Argentina (and that is a whole other story) during the '70's. The Argentine government decreed meatless week (no beef but you could buy pork, chicken, lamb) to save beef for export. So this pasta dish was found in restaurants during that week. The Argentines didn't believe in freezing beef as they thought it changed the flavor. So they lamented "veda" week. We would freeze beef but didn't miss it because we ate other kinds of meat. To Argentines, meat was beef.
Tallerine or Ham and Chicken Noodle Casserole
3 Cups bechamel sauce:
3 cups chicken stock, soup or boullion
6 tablespoons butter or oil
6 tablespoon flour
pepper to taste about 1/4 teaspoon
Melt butter or put oil in sauce pan and mix flour in to make a roux. Add liquid and stir over medium heat til it comes to a boil and thickens. Remove.
1/4 lb cooked chicken diced
1/4 lb diced ham
8 oz egg noodles or fettucine
8 oz grated cheese like mozzarella or muenster
parmesan or romano grated
I use left over chicken from a whole roasted chicken or from soup. I look for ham ends and sometimes muenster cheese at the deli case (my supermarket puts all the ends of deli meat and cheese in a case near it) that they mark down or when ham goes on sale at the deli counter.
Grease a casserole dish. Put half the noodles in it and half the meat over this and half the bechamel. Put half the grated cheese over this and sprinkle with parmesan. Add the rest of the noodles, meat and bechamel. Top with the rest of the cheese and sprinkle with parmesan. Cover, bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until bubbly and heated through.