Deglazing and Fond

Chicken Kale Pasta - recipe from Pioneer Woman's Dinnertime Cookbook
Click here for the recipe

Since today is Crock-pot Monday I chose a recipe I could start in my crockpot during the school day and finish after work. 

The Pioneer Woman calls for you to cook your chicken and then deglaze the pan. This rookie in the kitchen didn't know what that even meant. After reading on the great food blog The Reluctant Gourmet I learned that:

"Deglazing is a fancy and intimidating word that means to pour some cold liquid into a very hot pan to get up all the brown bits stuck to the bottom of the pan. Those brown bits are where all the flavors are, and it is called “fond.” (Fond is French for bottom)

When I got home I made my recipe in my Le Creuset stock pot and deglazed the pot. What I realized later was that my deglazing was totally useless because the pot was completely clean and didn't have any fond in the bottom of the pot. Next time I should probably look up confusing terms before starting the recipe. Oh well :)

Despite my mistakes it was an awesome meal! I would definitely make it again! When my hubby, Jeff, saw I was cooking with kale he was skeptical. Afterwards he gave a glowing review. He described it as a "delicious, light pasta. Very good even for having kale in it." 

Home cook lessons from today's recipe:

1. This recipe might be better if I cooked the chicken when I get home and try deglazing the pan correctly :)

2. This recipe will be moved to my Pack our lunch Sunday or Gourmet Friday recipe list.

3. I will try to look for other recipes where I get to deglaze the pan.

4. New terms to remember: Deglazing and Fond