Cubed chicken fillets, fresh button mushrooms, bell peppers and sweet peas swimming in a buttery and creamy sauce, chicken a la king can be served over pasta, rice, mashed potatoes or bread.
Cook’s notes
Considered a retro dish, chicken à la King was highly popular from the 1950s to the 1990s. Some say the dish has been in existence much longer than that although it went by other names. The invention of chicken à la King as we know it today has been claimed by more than one persion but food historians are still debating which claim is the real deal.
Chicken à la King is one of my husband’s favorite dishes and his mom used to cook it every year for his birthday. I make it pretty much the way she did except for the bell peppers and mushrooms. She used canned but I’ve always cooked chicken à la King with fresh bell peppers and button mushrooms.
Chicken
In the past, my husband always paired chicken à la King with bread. He still does but, for my younger daughter and I, we have since discovered the joys of tossing chicken à la King with buttered pasta.How to serve
While we prefer chicken thigh fillets over breast meat, the latter is used here because it is easier to cut into uniform sizes. But because it is a lean cut of meat, we took extra care not to overcook it. The technique used here is to poach the chicken for a short time, turn off the stove and allow it to finish cooking in the residual heat.Chicken à la King
Ingredients
- 2 chicken breast fillets about 500 grams / 1.1 pounds in total weight
- salt
- pepper
- ⅓ cup butter
- ⅓ cup all-purpose flour
- 1 cup diced bell pepper
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 300 grams fresh button mushrooms (10.5 oz) diced
- 1 cup evaporated milk
- ½ cup sweet peas
- 1 pinch grated nutmeg
Instructions
- Boil three to four cups of water in a pot with a teaspoon of salt and a generous pinch of pepper.
- Slide in the chicken breast fillets.
- When the water boils once more, turn the heat down to the lowest setting and cover the pot.
- Cook the chicken for ten minutes then turn off the heat and let the chicken continue cooking in the residual heat for another ten minutes.
- Scoop out the chicken (reserve the broth) and dump into a bowl of iced water until cool.
- Drain the chicken and cut into-half-inch cubes. Set aside.
- Melt the butter in a shallow pan.
- Add the flour, all at once, and stir quickly to remove lumps.
- Over medium heat, cook the roux for two to three minutes.
- Add the bell peppers, stir and cook for 30 seconds.
- Slowly pour in one cup of the reserved broth, stirring as you pour.
- Sseason lightly with pepper and stir in the diced mushrooms.
- Pour in the milk.
- Stir in the cubed chicken.
- If there is too little sauce or if the sauce is too thick for your liking, add more broth and milk.
- Stir in the sweet peas.
- Bring to a simmer, taste and add more salt and pepper, as needed.
- Serve your chicken a la king with rice, noodles, mashed potatoes or bread.
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