Chicken, bacon, mushroom and asparagus bake

Recently, people have asked me if I have any child-friendly recipes. This chicken, bacon, mushroom and asparagus bake takes me back to when I had to think up healthy dishes that would go down with kids of differing preparedness to try anything adventurous. This easy recipe has consistently proved popular with kids and adults alike.

Little demands

My sister has sometimes commented that we and two of our cousins are surprisingly unfussy eaters because our parents exposed us to a great variety of cuisines from the time we were toddlers. True or not, it's a tradition I continued and it seems to have had a similar effect. But at some time we all hit a similar wall: playdates and first sleepovers when suddenly kids with allergies or who are simply fussy eaters have to be factored in.

There's no great secret behind this one, no story of learning it on my travels, unless you include my journeys into cooking for kids. It basically dates back some 30 years ago to a time when I had to think about cooking essentially healthy food that groups of diverse kids were happy to eat. And, don't even get me started on the validity of why it contains dairy and other fats. Contrary to the alarming ignorance of some diet-obsessed parents, young children benefit from these things that build bones and make the little f**kers grow, as do they from the chlorophyl artfully hidden in this dish that even kids who don't like veggies would eat—though it would take a lot of encouragement with some of the side dishes here.

What, no pasta?

It's pretty obvious when you look at the recipe that it's similar one of those inevitable "pasta bake" dishes beloved of soccer moms around the world that date back to the original "macaroni pie"—the precursor to mac-'n-cheese—credited to James Hemings, an enslaved African-American chef who worked for Thomas Jefferson when he was appointed to represent the fledgeling United States at the court of Versailles. In Paris Hemings studied French cuisine for five years and responded to Jefferson's acquired liking for pasta. He invented 'macaroni pie' for him, as dish that so pleased Jefferson that it was served at a state banquet in 1802, Hemings having negotiated his freedom in 1796.

Now, this dish doesn't even include pasta, but I acknowledge its lineage back to the innovations of James Hemings, unlike many "pasta bake" recipes that never mention it. It was an innovation. Hemings' "macaroni pie" deployed the French béchamel sauce that he'd learned during his studies in Paris, not the Italian-style style of cooking macaroni in milk and adding cheese that was popular in Rome in the 18th century (more akin to today's carbonara) also made popular in with Paris by the wealthy young gentlemen who had visited Italy. Indeed, it may have been why Jefferson learned to love pasta. Nonetheless, James Hemings produced something even more to the future president's taste. But, I'm not going to get in to that because it seems rather silly given there's no pasta in this dish.

The béchamel sauce used in this recipe is a slight variation on the classic in that both the cheese and parsley are cooked into the sauce. There are two main schools of thought on the technique for creating a béchamel sauce. One school says you add all of the milk as soon as you have created the roux and patiently wait for it to thicken. The other posits that you create the roux then add the milk incrementally as it thickens. I strongly advise the latter given the parsley. Both schools agree, however, that near constant stirring with a wooden spoon is the key to a successful, smooth béchamel.

And, indeed, the reason there is no pasta in this dish is because one little sleepover diva wouldn't eat it, said it "tasted like frogs". Okay...

So, one of the things I cottoned onto was that, once ingredients are baked into a version of béchamel, a lot of kids can't really identify the flavour of things they might otherwise refuse to eat. Thus, I went largely for "unrecognisable"in the main dish, creating the room to improvise on the side dishes. To this day, there are grown-ups who, as kids, ate—and enjoyed—this dish that included things that might otherwise have raised objections. And, indeed, when the tiny anti-pasta queen wasn't on the guest list, those sides even included pasta, dressed in butter or a little olive oil and sesame seeds. Over the years, this dish I specifically evolved to keep hungry kids happy has morphed into a personal comfort food, even when there is no child in sight.

This ain't no deep dish

This dish works best when it's cooked in an fairly shallow ovenproof dish that's large enough to spread the ingredients out to a depth of approx 5 to 6cm, not piled thickly on top of each other in order that the sauce permeate through the ingredients and not cluster around the top layer. It's also why I favour a good old-fashion Pyrex dish: you can see that the sauce is reaching right down while preparing it for baking.

This version is for 2 to 3 adult diners, but easily feeds 4 to 6 children, depending on appetite and your side dishes. But, you can do the math if you want to cater for a larger group. It scales in a straightforward way.

While I have never frozen it, I am told that apparently the finished dish would freeze well by people with expertise in such areas. What I do quite a lot, however, is to pre-prepare it to the stage before adding the breadcrumbs and baking and store (covered) in the fridge. That certainly works well and is a working parent's delight. Prepared during some downtime, it's a great feeling to know that when you get home exhausted over the next couple of days, all you need to do is sprinkle on the breadcrumbs and bake for 30 minutes to serve up a tasty homemade meal.

3 top tips to get this recipe right:

• I'm using young green asparagus that I steam and dress with a little olive oil and half a lemon some hours before preparing the main dish. But, this is one of those dishes that works perfectly well with tinned or bottled asparagus, making it ideal if you're feeding people in an unfamiliar self-catering kitchen with limited facilities. It also works equally well with peas, kale, broad beans, sweetcorn, broccoli or spinach—basically any pre-cooked vegetable you prefer or hope to sneak under the radar.

• The cheese is important; have a sufficiently interesting, somewhat subtle flavour to give it that little extra, but it shouldn't be too "cheesy". This relates to both quantity but also choice of cheese. For example, Cheddar tends to be an overkill. I'm doing it here with Grano Padano, but other cheeses that work are Pecorino, Gruyere, Gouda (Soetmelk), Edam, Leerdammer or Emmental. And, be careful to not to overdo the quantities of the cheese. Aside aside from smothering all the flavours with cheese, if it is too thick, the sauce will not permeate all layers of the dish as it should.

• When you add the fairly generous amount of chopped parsley to the sauce, be patient in letting it reduce. At first, it can look like it's gone horribly wrong. But, if you maintain the low-medium heat (ensuring it doesn't boil) and continue stirring, as the parsley cooks in, it will resume thickening.

Shopping list

for the chicken, bacon, mushroom and asparagus bake

• 2 skinless chicken breasts; cut into fairly large bite-sized pieces

• 4 rashers of thick bacon, (smoked or unsmoked); cut into fairly large cubes

• 2 large echalion shallots; peeled and sliced into rings

• Approx. 200g medium-sized chestnut mushrooms; sliced into thirds

• Approx. 400g young green asparagus; steamed (or alternatives)

• The juice of ½ a fresh lemon (optional)

• 2tspns finely cubed garlic

• 4 to 5 tbspns virgin olive oil (or sunflower oil)

• 1tspn Worcestershire sauce

• 2tbspns unsalted butter

• 2tbspns plain flour

• Approx. 450ml full fat milk

• Approx. 70g Grana Padano (or other cheese); finely grated

• A generous clutch of fresh flat leaf parsley; finely chopped

• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

for the side dishes

I am doing it here with young potatoes boiled in their skins—intentionally not dressed since the sauce from the dish will suffice—steamed fresh green beans dressed with a sprinkling of Japanese furikake.

But, over the years I have found numerous other side dishes that work well with it and tended to juggle the choice between what I knew about the kids' preferences and what I could get away with to cram in veggies, usually going for one carb and at least one veggie option. Among the others, the most successful include:

• Carbs — pasta dressed with olive oil and sesame seeds; spätzle dressed with a little butter; pan con tomate; small roast potatoes (skin on) or crusty rustic breads

• Veggies — minted garden peas; steamed carrots dressed in honey and sesame seeds, corn on the cob; simple garden salads; homemade coleslaw; and boiled gem squash

Cooking Method

the chicken, bacon, mushroom and asparagus bake

1. Unless using tinned asparagus—which is perfectly fine—do this first. I usually do it some time before, cutting into pieces; dressing with the lemon juice and a little olive oil while still warm and then storing in the fridge

2. In a suitable frying pan (skillet), heat a couple of tablespoons of oil on a medium heat. Once heated, sauté the mushrooms, adding the Worcestershire sauce when they begin to soften. Once cooked, decant to another dish with any juices

3. Add the remaining olive oil to the same unwashed pan. Sauté the shallot rings, breaking them up if needed. Don't worry if they catch a little, but also don't wait for them to fully brown. Add the bacon and stir in. Sauté until definitely cooked, but not until crisp. Then add the chicken pieces and stir in

4. If the chicken sticks, add a little more olive oil and slightly reduce the heat. When the chicken appears half-cooked, add the garlic and stir in. At this point, season with a little salt and freshly ground pepper. Continue to stir until almost cooked. When it is nearing being cooked, add the mushrooms and all of their juices back into the pan and fold in

5. In contrast to what came before, there might now be more moisture in the pan than needed. Cook off any excess, increasing the heat slightly if necessary. As soon as all of the liquid is nearly cooked off, add the asparagus to the pan and stir in, cooking for a mere minute or so. Remove from the heat. Cover and allow to cool naturally. This cold take as much as an hour. Once cooled, spread out in an ovenproof dish. Make sure you have allowed it to cool before cooking the béchamel sauce

6. In a suitable clean frying pan, melt the butter on a low-medium heat. Once it has liquified and shows the first signs of bubbling, add the flour, ideally sifting it. Stir continuously to ensure the roux you create has no lumps. Pour in approx. 60ml milk and stir in continuously. Continue this process of adding the milk, stirring in and waiting until the sauce again thickens until adding more until you have added about three quarters of the milk

7. Then, add all of the cheese and stir continuously as it melts in. If it thickens too quickly, add a little more milk, stirring continuously. When the sauce is reasonably thick, add all of the parsley and stir in, followed after 1min by the remainder of the milk. This might seem disastrous at first, but hold your nerve: as soon as the parsley warms, it will once again thicken. Season with salt and pepper. When the sauce is suitably thickened—in this case it should not be too thick—remove from the heat

8. While the béchamel is still warm, pour it over the ingredients in the baking dish in a smooth and steady way, ensuring it is distributed evenly. The dish needs to go into to a hot oven only when it is cooled. Thus, you can either wait and bake it about an hour or so later OR, you can wait until it is full cooled and then store it in the fridge to bake at any point during the next couple of days

9. When you are ready to bake it, sprinkle the dry breadcrumbs evenly over the surface. I also like to spritz a tiny amount of olive oil over the top of the breadcrumbs, but this is not essential. Then bake in an oven preheated to 200°C for 30mins or until the breadcrumbs are golden brown.

10. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes, then plate—or take to table to dish up there—with the side dishes of your choice

Alternatives

This is by default a carnivore dish, so I think their needs are implicitly met. However, because of the béchamel, this dish can easily be turned lactovegetarian but it is impossible to make vegan unless you have a vegan secret superpower to produce a viable béchamel. I'm afraid that to date the only vegan concoctions that anyone has served to me and dared to call "béchamel" can only be described as "warm curdled wallpaper paste". Not one of the tiny diners for whom I had to evolve this recipe would have stood for it. Best to find another recipe.

For lactovegeterians, this is actually a very flexible recipe. The version that is lowest-maintenance is to simply forget the chicken and bacon and ramp up the quantities of shallots, mushrooms and asparagus and otherwise follow the recipe. However, the tried and tested version that I really recommend is to use Quorn chicken-flavour pieces and tempeh bacon. Pretty much follow the recipe above, but add both to the pan at the same time and note that they will "brown" relatively quickly. Use mushroom ketchup (or miso in a bind) instead of Worcestershire sauce.

It also works wonderfully well as a pescatarian version that I have done on numerous occasions. Ditch the bacon and chicken. Steam their equivalent in smoked haddock and skinless cod (or other white fish). Once the mushrooms are cooked, add large deboned flakes of fish into the pan and fold in followed by the asparagus before transferring to the oven baking dish. I also find that adding 1tspn of American-style sweet mustard to the béchamel gives it a lovely little lift.

Pairings

Given that the origins of this dish were in cooking for and taking care of small groups of young children, no booze was involved until decades later when they could all be trusted to not run with scissors or trying to wire Barbie up to a wall socket.

In it turning into a dish that adults could enjoy amongst themselves, it nonetheless remains a quotidian comfort food and thus, if drinking wine with it—as we are here—it's always been a workaday, easy-drinking wine such as a young South African or Kiwi Sauvignon Blanc.

But equally, as here in my nostalgic moment, I still think it works best with the beverage I used to make all those years ago: the juice of one orange and one lime squeezed into a 2l bottle of sparkling water through a funnel and then pushing half the skin and pith (sliced) of each through the neck of the bottle and chilling it for a couple of hours so the flavours infused. Yeah, Daddy was way ahead of the curve on not feeding kids inappropriate sugar-laden drinks even back then.

Personally, I think neither red wine nor beer would work with this dish that has subtle and mild flavours—after all, it was made for kids—so I have never tried.