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08/24/2006 Archived Entry: "Chicken a la King"

It has been way too long since I wrote last. Don’t think I am vegetating this summer, however. I am just eating lots of vegetables.

Lame jokes aside, I have been meaning to write about the several restaurants that I eaten in over the last couple of months. I know I said in my last letter that I was only eating minestrone at home, but that’s not quite true. I have been out and about a few times. And I was thinking this morning, again, that I should finally get down to writing about the experiences, most of which I can recommend because I wasn’t out and about to critique new restaurants, just to have a good time. So I went mainly to the tried and true, and they were true again.

But then, as has happened several times over the last few weeks, I couldn’t bring myself to write about restaurants. I did that for so long to make a living, it’s no fun anymore. Among other things, I am tired of my own restaurant review vocabulary. Allow me then to make very brief business of these restaurants in my next letter, which I promise I will do by the end of the week. For now, however, here’s something interesting I found on my desk while procrastinating about writing up restaurants.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend asked me to make him Chicken a la King. He heard Martha Stewart mention Turkey Tetrazzini on TV, and how much she liked it (a repeat of a Thanksgiving leftovers show?), and it made him think of Chicken a la King, especially since I told him dinner was going to be based on leftover roasted chicken breast.

He says he used to be embarrassed that he loved Chicken a la King, but if Martha likes Turkey Tetrazzini, which is almost the same thing, he figured how déclassé could Chicken a la King be? I printed out the recipe, but then we changed our minds when I discovered that the bit of cream I had on hand was sour. Instead, we ate a hash of cubed potatoes, sauteed onions and peppers, and the leftover roasted chicken breast that had first inspired the Chicken a la King. The hash was excellent, by the way.

He thought for sure he had eaten Chicken a la King at my house when I was testing recipes for Arthur Schwartz’s New York City Food. And he was right. But he couldn’t find it in the book. Right again! Which is why I needed to print it out from my computer files. It is not in the book because it ended up on the editing room floor, so to speak. Besides being a really great recipe (when, as I and James Beard say below, it is made well), there’s a Brooklyn story attached to it.

Chicken a la King is actually just one of a zillion creamed chicken dishes that were listed on restaurant menus in the late 1800s – maybe even earlier – and through the 1960s. At “21” they still make their version, introduced sometime during Prohibition, which they call Chicken Hash. White and creamy, it remains one of the most popular dishes on the menu. They cannot get rid of it. Two years ago I gave my former assistant Sean Brady a little birthday party at ’21’ and at the next table Liza Minelli was also celebrating her birthday. We ordered the Chicken Hash “for the table.” They all ordered their own, Liza’s nearest and dearest, Chita Rivera, Marvin Hamlish, John Kander, Fred Ebb and Rocky Brenner, Yule’s son.

The 1931 edition of the Joy of Cooking gives a recipe for Chicken a la King without mention of its derivation, which makes me suppose that it was by then so accepted as part of the American repertoire of daily dishes. Did they assume its name referred to the richness of a dish made with lots of butter and cream, as in “fit for a king”? Unfortunately, by the 1950s it was sadly degraded into one of those dishes made with cream of chicken soup and other canned goods, or made gelatinous and ugly with too much flour thickening. It became a dreaded cafeteria steam-table dish. James Beard wrote, in his 1972 “American Cookery,” that it “found a great and ready public for many years. It still has a limited public. Usually prepared in mediocre fashion, it is still found in tea rooms and restaurants. Their version has little to do with the original, which is really quite good if done with care and fine ingredients.”

As a testament to its popularity, there are numerous stories about its creation. The most unlikely is that it was originally served at the vaunted Delmonico’s, where a customer, either Mr. or Mrs. Foxhall Keene, suggested it to the legendary chef of Delonico’s, Charles Ranhofer. The name Keene was promptly transmuted to King, so the story goes.

Another story places its creation at Claridge’s Hotel in London. There are also tales that it was born in Miami, on Long Island, and at the Waldorf-Astoria.

The most likely origin of Chicken a la King, however, is the Brighton Beach Hotel in Brooklyn, which at the time was an elegant get-away for rich New Yorkers. Sometime between 1898 and the early 1900s, it was prepared by the hotel’s chef George Greenwald for the owner of the hotel, E. Clark King. King liked it so well that he had it put on the menu. Indeed, it appeared on early twentieth century Brighton Beach Hotel menus for $1.25.

P.S: Amazon is still featuring "Arthur Schwartz's New York City Food: An opinionated history with legendary recipes" for $18, and with free shipping if your order is $25 or more. (Two copies? One for a gift?) That’s cheaper than I can buy it myself directly from my publisher.

Chicken a la King
Serves 4

This is my take on James Beard’s version of the dish as outlined in his book, “American Cookery.” Beard uses less chicken and his velouté contains six times more cream, three tablespoons more butter as a final enrichment, and double the amount of sherry. He claims that it is the original recipe, and given New York’s taste for over-the-top rich French food at the turn of the twentieth century, it is likely close. No one would dare eat that way today.

For the velouté (sauce):
4 tablespoons butter
6 tablespoons flour
3 cups chicken broth (see note)
A few fresh scrapings of nutmeg
Salt
Freshly ground white pepper to taste

Plus:
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 pound white mushrooms, thinly sliced (about 1 1/2 cups already sliced)
2 tablespoons minced fresh green bell pepper
3 tablespoons minced jarred pimiento (original ingredient) or minced fresh red pepper
1 tablespoon grated onion (grated on the finest side of a four-sided grater)
2 tablespoons dry sherry (I like Amontillado)
1/4 cup heavy cream (or a little more)
4 cups white meat chicken cut into 1/2-inch cubes

Plus: Toast, puff pastry patty shells, or rice

To make the sauce velouté: In a 1 1/2 to 2 1/2-quart saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. With a wooden spoon, stir in the flour and let cook, bubbling vigorously, for 2 minutes, stirring a few times. Remove the pan from the heat and let it stand until the cooking stops.

Add all the chicken broth and stir well until the flour-butter mixture (the roux) is fully dissolved. Place the pot back on medium heat and, stirring constantly, scraping the bottom of the pan, cook until the mixture simmers and thickens. Season with salt, if necessary, freshly ground pepper, and nutmeg. Set aside.

To prepare the dish: In a straight-sided, 10-inch sauté pan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the mushrooms and minced green pepper (and minced red pepper, if using). Stir to coat them with butter. Cook for about 3 minutes, until the mushrooms exude their liquid. Add the pimiento and grated onion. Sauté 1 minute more.

Pour the velouté into the pan with the mushrooms. Stir in the sherry and cream. Bring to a simmer. Taste and correct seasoning again, if necessary.

Stir in the cubed chicken and heat through in the sauce.

Serve on toast points, in pastry shells or on white rice.