Chicken fit for a queen, 70 years later

It certainly feels appropriate to quote Queen Elizabeth II for this particular recipe: “People are touched by events which have their roots far across the world.”

The grand dame rose to the throne seven decades ago this year, and on Feb. 6, the start date of Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee, I got this email from reader Charlotte Matiska:

Much has been said about coronation chicken this week. I would love to see you or your bride give it a go in the test kitchen. I have checked it out on you tube, so many different recipes out there. Thanks!

My immediate reaction went something like “Coronation what now?” No offense to her majesty, but “Coronation Chicken” sounds like a Looney Tunes character — maybe an upper-crust foil to that quintessential country rooster, Foghorn Leghorn.

But as usual Google enlightened, informing me that 1) the recipe came about when writer Constance Spry teamed with Rosemary Hume, founder of Le Cordon Bleu cookery school, “while preparing the food for the banquet of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II”.

So this dish, essentially a chicken salad, bears a pretty heady pedigree. It also has, as Charlotte advised, a lot of variations. After sifting through a number of them, I kept coming back to this one from thepetitecook.com. I have only minor tips. I opted to cook the chicken in broth (as recommended in a different recipe) rather than water because, as MT pointed out, you cook chicken in water to remove the flavor and make soup. I didn’t even look for “double-concentrated tomato paste” and just used double the amount of regular. And I didn’t measure the chicken, I just cooked two breasts (two half-breasts, technically) and shred it because that was easier than trying to cube it.

The Petite Cook website insists this version “follows very precisely the traditional recipe, and it couldn’t be easier to make.” Having been born after the coronation, I can’t vouch for the first part, but easy? You betcha, and worth the time.

But don’t take our word for it, we deign to allow the newsroom taste testers speak.

“I liked it a lot, and I think it would be a good way to introduce someone to Indian food if they were hesitant about it,” obituary clerk Ashley Bringmann said. “It’s like ‘baby steps’ with the curry.”

“I adore this,” news editor Roger DuPuis said, describing himself as “a huge fan of curry.” Don’t worry, the Anglophile emerged as well. Feel free to hum a little “Rule Britannia” here.

“In the 1940s, Britons would have been eating boiled root vegetables, and maybe boiled meat. Then in the 1950s, the post-war years, they would have seen more immigration and importation of other kinds of food. The curry would have been a relatively new flavor, and it would have matched the joyous occasion of a beautiful young queen being crowned. It was an optimistic time.”

MT insisted she knew of only two ingredients prior to tasting: The chicken because, well, duh, and the apricots because I had trouble finding some on my first foray to the store, and she made it a point to look for them in other stores during her travels, bringing some home and thus saving the promised authenticity of the dish.

“I was pleasantly surprised with the curry, the creamy sauce and the crunch of the nuts,” she said. “I’d say it’s a dish fit for a queen.”

Well, that’s why I served it to her first!

(In our house, that’s called a “ka-ching,” and if I’d saved every one I came up with over the last 21 years, I could fill a book).

Predictably, Editor Joe Soprano scoffed at tasting this. “You should make Presidential Chicken,” he insised. “We fought a war to get away from those monarchs.”

But it was our globe-trotting, “join the Navy, see the world” veteran Ryan Evans who made the aforementioned Queen Elizabeth quote particularly apropos.

“I’m having sensory memory recall. It reminds me of the first time I visited an Indian restaurant in Japan,” he recounted from days stationed in Yokosuka, where he enjoyed visiting the Sarina restaurant again, and again, and again. Clearly savoring both the chicken before him and the memory behind him, he started to express the satisfaction, but seemed at a loss for the right word. “I was … done!”

There you have it, a British recipe served in coal-cracker country by a Slovak descendant sparking memories of an Indian Restaurant in Japan.

“Events which have their roots far across the world,” indeed!

Dobru Chut!

Coronation Chicken (thepetitecook.com)

Ingredients

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoon white onion (or 1 shallot), finely chopped (I had a shallot handy and used that)

1 bay leaf

2 teaspoon mild curry powder

1 teaspoon double-concentrated tomato paste (I used about a tablespoon regular tomato paste)

¼ cup red wine

¼ cup water

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

¼ teaspoon brown sugar

1 ⅛cups mayonnaise

1 cup creme fraiche (I used the usual substitute, sour cream)

1 tablespoon dried apricots, finely chopped

6 cups skinless chicken breasts, cooked and shredded or cut into chunks

salt & pepper to taste

3 tablespoon toasted almond flakes, (optional)

Heat the extra-virgin olive oil in a large frying pan over medium-low heat. Add the onion, bay leaf and curry powder and gently cook for 2 minutes. Add the tomato paste, red wine and water and bring to a gentle boil. Add the lemon juice and a pinch of sugar, then season with salt and freshly cracked black pepper to taste.

Simmer for 2 minutes, until the sauce is slightly reduced, then remove from the heat. Strain the sauce through a fine sieve and allow it to cool.

In a large bowl mix together the prepared sauce with the mayonnaise, creme fraiche and apricots. Add the cooked chicken and gently fold it all together. Finally, add the toasted almond flakes if using.

Serve the coronation chicken with a salad, rice or as a filling for jacket potatoes or sandwiches. Enjoy!