Chicken or turkey divan (p. 113) and Seafood divan (p. 113)

Divans are one of those really retro (some would say "dated") casserole style American foods. They would totally be appropriate at that "Mad Men" party you are planning to throw. But they aren't anything that your average person even considers making on an average day. That being said, a divan is a pretty easy way to liven up leftover chicken and uses ingredients that you probably have on hand.

I decided to make both Chicken or turkey divan (p. 113) and Seafood divan (p. 113) because it took about the same amount of effort to make both that it was going to take to make one.

I didn't take pictures of the process for this one. Sorry!

I took slices of hot buttered toast and layered them with sliced cooked turkey breast. I spooned cooked broccoli on the top, sprinkled with a little salt, and layered Mornay sauce over the top. It was only after making batch one of the Mornay sauce that I realized the TJOC recipe only produces one cup at a time and I needed more than that. Fortunately, Mornay sauce is easy to scale up and I can make it super, super fast now, so it wasn't a problem. I sprinkled Parmesan over the top of the divan.




For the seafood divan I replaced the turkey with tuna (one with canned, the other two with pouch) and replaced the broccoli with asparagus. Seafood divan would be a great choice for Catholics during lent, who are getting sick of their McDonald's Filet O Fish.



Finished seafood divan:



Finished turkey divan:



So how where they? Josh said that the seafood divan using canned tuna was a bit soggy, so you are better off using pouch tuna or shrimp. I thought the turkey divan was quite good, it was almost good enough to sway me from my hatred of hot sandwiches. The lasting lesson from these two dishes is that Mornay sauce makes anything better. The Mornay sauce mixed with the vegetables was by far the best part of the dish.