Chicken a la King

Chicken a la King served over a slice of toast

Wotchers!
Chicken a la King is a retro dish from my youth, as in, it was already retro when I first ate it, back in the 1980s. I worked in a hotel and it made regular appearances in the staff canteen: chunks of chicken and peppers in a white sauce, over (overcooked) pasta shapes, and baked in the oven. It always looked much better than it tasted, but I’ll still confess to choosing it on more than one occasion. The huge divide between the posh-sounding name and the pile of regret I consumed during my brief lunch-break always seemed incongruous.

I was reminded of this recipe recently, and was motivated to find out whether it genuinely was an elegant dish fallen on hard times, or whether it had always been a basic recipe with delusions of grandeur.

Allow me to present the results of my recipe spelunking!

There’s conflicting stories as to where it originated, but if you read around, the most often cited is that it was created at the Brighton Beach Hotel in Brooklyn, New York at the end of the nineteenth century (1898) by chef George Greenwald for his boss E. Clarke King II. It really was a rich and elegant dish. Clark King’s son, E. Clark King III, published his account of the creation of the famous dish in Better Homes and Gardens in April 1937 (pp 86 & 154), together with the original recipe, reproduced below: a rich dish of chicken, peppers and mushrooms in a thickened cream sauce, served with pimientos over toast.

By that time the dish had become such a popular mixture of ingredients, it had been available in tin cans for over a decade.

Advertisement for canned Chicken a la King, Chicago Daily Tribune, February 2nd, 1923, p5

Interestingly, I have found an earlier recipe than the accepted one from Mr King III. Published in the Massillon Independent newspaper, on Christmas Eve in 1906, the recipe (reproduced below) includes even more richness in the form of whole truffles, capers and nutmeg.

Recipe for Chicken a la King, Massillon Independent newspaper, December 24, 1906, p2

Alas, the budget in this household does not stretch to truffles, so I have made the version recorded by E. Clark King III. It is very rich, with a cream sauce thickened with both flour and egg yolks, yet the flavour is delicate: the peppers, mushrooms and pimiento all retain their individuality in terms of taste and texture. There’s is a gentle amount of warmth from the paprika, and the sherry gives an elegance to the sauce. Finally, serving it over toast adds a very pleasing crunchiness and texture that is a great contrast to the soft richness of the chicken.

Alternative serving suggestion: Chicken a la King, served on/over a puff pastry case.

Chicken a la King

I have cherry-picked a few of details from the 1906 recipe. I can’t be doing with instructions like “half a pepper”, because the unused half always seems to go missing, or get misplaced until way past it’s prime, so I’ve gone with a whole small green pepper. Also, the onion juice is now grated onion because wrestling two halves of an onion onto a lemon squeezer to get just 1tsp of onion juice is something I have now crossed off my “Must Try” list with a monumental eye-roll. Finally, I’ve changed the method to making the sauce without the additions initially, as a means of avoiding having any clumps of flour.

2-3tbs butter
100g mushrooms, sliced – I chose chestnut mushrooms
1 small green pepper, de-seeded and sliced into thin 3cm strips
2-3 tbs plain flour
600ml single cream
1 tsp salt
½ tsp ground white pepper
60g butter, melted and cooled
3 large egg yolks
1tsp grated onion
1 tbs lemon juice
½ tsp ground paprika
2-4tbs sherry
60g drained Piquanté/Pimiento peppers, sliced small

600g-ish cooked chicken

• Melt the butter in a pan and cook the mushrooms and pepper for 5 minutes. Remove the vegetables from the pan and reserve.
• Sprinkle in the flour and stir to combine.
• Add the single cream and whisk over medium-low heat until thickened (it won’t be very thick).
• Season with salt and pepper.
• Whisk together the cooled melted butter, the yolks, grated onion, lemon juice, paprika.
• Add the egg mixture into cream mixture and stir to combine.
• Add the mushrooms, green and red peppers, and the chicken to the cream sauce and allow the dish heat through on a low setting (number 1 or 2 on the hob). Do not let the mixture boil, or it will split/curdle.
• When everything is hot, stir in the sherry. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary.
• Serve on toasted bread, puff pastry cases or with rice.