Tarragon-Cream Chicken and Polenta Pot Pies (GOOD WITH HELP)

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Tarragon-Cream Chicken and Polenta Pot Pies (GOOD WITH HELP)

Saw this one on 30 Minute Meals and it looked pretty good, so I gave it a whirl. As with just about every Rachel Ray recipe, it needed a little bit of help to take it from OK to good.

Here's the link to the original recipe

If there's one thing I've learned on just about every Rachel Ray dish ... they're bland. It's not that they're bad, they just need more seasoning (I imagine her blandness is by design for the mainstream crowd).

So here's my tweaks ...

* Not nearly enough polenta in the recipe, and the polenta that it called for was also incredibly thick (too thick). I added more polenta and more liquid. You certainly don't want the polenta to be soupy since it needs to sit on top of the chicken mixture, but the original result was way too damn thick and borderline pasty and dry.

* Way too much liquid in the chicken mixture. Again, you want the polenta to sit on top of the mixture, and if it's too liquidy there's no way that will happen. I ended up straining off some of the liquid, but next time I'd just use less stock and cream.

* Not enough seasoning. You'll definitely need to add salt and pepper a couple times, and I'd also add fresh tyme next time as well as the tarragon to give it a little more punch.

All in all it was good, but it needed a little minor surgery to get it there.