Chicken à la King
A family favorite: Chicken à la King
A very fulfilling meal and very easy to make. It’s a great way to stretch out the chicken stock recipe and the chicken meat that comes with it. My Dad claims it’s his favorite meal. Recipes abound – this is my spin on it. It’s based around a basic white sauce but if you want you can tell others it’s a Bachamel sauce (one of the French master sauces) which sounds so much fancier than a basic white sauce.
This recipe is a guideline – everything is very flexible and you can modify the actual proportions considerably as long as the roux (see below) is correct.
Yields 3-4 servings
- 70g (21/2) oz butter, cubed
- 100 g (4 oz or about 2 cups) sliced mushrooms (fresh or canned)
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp seasoned salt
- 1 1/2 cups fresh chicken stock
- 3/4 cup milk
- 1/2 cup frozen peas
- 1 1/2 cups pulled cooked chicken
- 1/8 cup chopped roasted & peeled red capsicum (aka pimento) – I usually use ones purchased in jars and almost always add more because I love them
- dash mild curry powder (optional)
- 2-3 slides toasted bread (or slices any crusty toasted bread) cut into small sections, for serving
Melt the butter over low heat. Add mushrooms and cook a few minutes. Add flour, salt and pepper and stir frequently, until flour is completely absorbed and is starting to bubble. If you don’t cook the flour until smooth and bubbling you could get lumps in the sauce. (This is called a roux – pronounced roo). Add milk and stock.
Increase heat to medium and bring to a gentle boil stirring frequently. When the sauce just starts to bubble it is as thick as it will get (the sauce will thicken slightly when cooled so keep that in mind). If it’s too thick simply add some milk, if too thin you can either cook a while to reduce it or stir in some flour that has been dissolved in water.
When you are happy with the thickness add the rest of the ingredients and cook until all is hot and the sauce is bubbling nicely. Top the toast points with the sauce and serve immediately.
I always use more pepper in the base sauce and I always end up adding salt to my plate so feel free to adjust to your taste. A little shredded Parmesan cheese on top is nice, you can use any green vegetable instead of peas (the green is mostly for a nice color contrast than anything else) so experiment with adding assorted ingredients that suit you.
