Chicken a la King

While this dish is well known by name, whether large numbers of people have actually tried it is another question. To my memory, it had been decades since I had "Chicken a la King," a dish seemingly developed in the United States in the late 1800s. It's a dish that was easily adapted to become a way of using leftover chicken.

To my recollection, I never had homemade "Chicken a la King," but rather it was a frozen dinner or a canned version, and I had it with biscuits. I believe it was a bit of a cream(y) gravy, rather than an outright cream sauce. So I checked perhaps 20 recipes and I recently made "Chicken a la King" twice. First, I essentially made it as most of the recipes suggested, with a cream sauce. I found it to be bland, so the second time I made it (about a week later), I decided to go my own way and to make it as more of a creamy chicken gravy. I found it to be much tastier. The key is to use chicken stock/broth that tastes like chicken, not like the produce department at your local market. You can make your own, or "doctor up" some store bought stock. There are some vegetables in the overall recipe, but the you don't need vegetables in the stock/broth. I made my own chicken broth with 3 whole chicken legs, skin on, a hearty tablespoon of chicken soup base and 1/4 teaspoon pepper added to 2 1/2 cups of water. The soup base has salt, so you need not add salt to the broth. Taste the broth once the chicken legs are tender and don't be afraid to add a little more soup base (I added about another level teaspoon), just don't overdo it, as almost all soup bases are salty. Remember too, you only need 2 cups of stock/broth, which really isn't very much, so let the stock gently simmer and cook down to concentrate the flavor in the required 2 cups of broth. You can take the cooked chicken leg meat off the bones and use it as part of the chicken for the dish. I also used some boneless, skinless chicken breast meat, and I cooked it fairly well in the skillet, before I added the chicken broth. That was one of the problems with the first Chicken a la King I made; I only used fresh boneless, skinless chicken breast and a teaspoon or so of chicken soup base, and the meat just doesn't give off much flavor; thus, the dish was bland.

Ingredients (about 4 to 6 servings):

3 cups chicken, chopped boneless chicken, or already cooked boneless chicken, chopped
1 1/2 cups mushrooms, sliced or chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 medium red bell pepper, stem and seeds removed, then chopped
2/3 cup frozen peas (or canned peas, well drained)
2 cups chicken stock/broth 
1/4 cup flour
5 tablespoons evaporated milk 
2 tablespoons sour cream (reduced fat is fine)
3 tablespoons butter
2/3 teaspoon salt (if the broth has a high salt content, you can omit this, or reduce the amount)
1 teaspoon ground white pepper (or black pepper)
buttered noodles, rice, biscuits or toast for serving

In a large skillet, melt the butter over low heat. Add the garlic and cook briefly, then add the mushrooms and red bell pepper. Cook for another couple of minutes until the mushrooms and red pepper are softening (they will cook further). Add the raw chicken, the salt (if using) and white or black pepper. Cook for about 4 or 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. The chicken may well be cooked by this time, but if not, no need to worry, as it will cook further. (If you're using already cooked chicken, you only need to reheat the chicken, so you do not have to add the chicken until later.) Gradually add the chicken broth, stirring to mix it in well. Let the mixture come to a simmer and let it cook for 2 or 3 minutes. Mix the flour and evaporated (canned) milk very well to avoid lumps. GRADUALLY add the flour/milk to the skillet, stirring constantly. Keep the mixture simmering as you add the flour, and let the liquid component thicken until it reaches the desired thickness. The sauce should be rather thick, as this is not soup, but a sauce that will cling to noodles, rice, biscuits or toast. You needn't use all of the flour/milk mixture if the sauce is nicely thickened. Now stir in the sour cream, then fold in the peas; cook until the peas are heated through (if you're using chicken that is already cooked, add it now too).   

  
I had the Chicken a la King over buttered noodles...

WORD HISTORY:
Broad-This word has an uncertain origin, but "apparently," it is only found in the Germanic languages. I've seen a "theory" that links it to the Indo European ancestor of "bear" (the verb meaning "to carry"), which seems to theorize that its original sense was "large." Anyway, "broad" goes back to Old Germanic "braida," which meant, "wide, roomy, spacious." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "brad" (long "a" sound), which meant, "wide, stretched out, open, roomy, spacious." This later became "brood" (long 'o' sound), before the modern form. The thing is, "broad" has never really had a specific definition to differentiate it from "wide," which is also true of its other Germanic relatives. The other Germanic languages have: German "breit" ^ (wide, broad, stretched out sideways, roomy), Low German Saxon "breet" (wide, broad), West Frisian "breed" (wide, broad), Dutch "breed" (wide, broad), Danish "bred" (wide, broad), Norwegian "brei/bred (two forms: wide, broad), Swedish "bred" (wide, broad), Icelandic "breiður" (broad, wide).

^ Bavarian German dialect has "broad," but it is pronounced more like "bro-ahd" (bro=like the slang term "bro" for "brother").