Chicken à la King

Below is an article about the dish called Chicken à la King: 


CHICKEN A LA KING

Have you ever come across one of those dishes in which there are so many origin tales about it that it keeps your head spinning? For me, one of those dishes is Chicken à la King. And what I find so amazing about this it that the dish has always strikes me as so simple, it would never occurred to me that it had such a complicated origin.

Chicken à la King is a very simple dish to prepare. It basically consists of diced chicken in a cream sauce. The dish is prepared with sherry, mushrooms, and vegetables. And it is usually served over rice, pasta, or some kind of bread . . . like toast. It has become very popular with some to serve it over biscuits. The reason behind the complication over the dish's origin is that several people have claim responsibility for creating Chicken à la King and no one has been able to confirm which origin tale is true. Here are some of the claims for the dish's origin:

*Charles Ranhofer, chef of Manhattan's Delmonico's restaurant had created the dish sometime during the 1880s. According to this claim, Ranhofer created the dish for American race horse breeder/trainer, Foxhall P. Keene, and the dish was originally called Chicken à la Keene.

*According to another claim, someone cook at Claridge's Hotel created the dish in 1881 and named it after Keene's father, American stockbroker James P. Keene.

*George Greenwald of the Brighton Beach Hotel in Brighton Beach had created the dish in 1898 and named it after hotel patron E. Clarke King II and his wife.

*William "Bill" King , a cook at the Bellevue Hotel in Philadelphia, had created the dish sometime during the 1890s. When King died in 1915, several newspapers gave him credit for the dish. Most people believe this is the most plausible origin of the dish.

Although the recipe for the dish was included in cookbooks throughout the first two decades of the 20th century, like 1906's "The Fanny Farmer Cookbook", Chicken à la King really became popular during the middle to late 20th century. Regardless of who was truly responsible for the creation of Chicken à la King, below is a recipe for it from the Betty Crocker website:


Chicken à la King

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 small green bell pepper, chopped (1/2 cup)
3 ounces fresh mushrooms, sliced (3 ounces)
1/2 cup Gold Medal™ all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 1/2 cups milk 
1 1/4 cups Progresso™ chicken broth (from 32-ounce carton)
2 cups cut-up cooked chicken or turkey
1 jar (2 ounces) diced pimientos, drained


Preparation
1. Melt butter in 3-quart saucepan over medium-high heat. Cook bell pepper and mushrooms in 
butter, stirring occasionally, until bell pepper is crisp-tender.
2. Stir in flour, salt and pepper. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until bubbly; 
remove from heat. Stir in milk and broth. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Boil and 
stir 1 minute. Stir in chicken and pimientos; cook until hot. Serve over rice.


Note: You can serve Chicken à la King over rice, any other kind of past, toast or even biscuits. The choice is yours.