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Thursday 27 July 2017

Coronation Chicken - The Jewel in my Crown!


Hello my lovelies. 

To mark Queenie’s Platinum Jubilee celebrated last week I’m re-issuing my recipe for Coronation Chicken.
The dish was devised for her coronation in 1953. 
It remains one of my all time favourite dishes, to make and to eat. 
  Enjoy!




Dear reader, 
do you have dishes that you roll out time and time again? 
Dishes that become your default dish? 
You know, a dish that when you are asked to take food to a party (I think the Americans call it Pot Luck) you roll out without hesitation, because you've made the dish so many times that you know it works, you know it's easy, and you know that it is always well received.
And even more thrilling is when you get "You can only come to the party if you bring your delicious (insert name of your successful dish)"
Or when your brother in law says “thanks for a great party, but there was one thing spoiling it - you didn’t make (insert the name of the dish I’m about to share with you).  This really did happen two years ago!

Well, if you were to ask me to bring party nibbles, main dish or something sweet to your summer party, I'd probably bring crab cakes, coronation chicken and gluten-free brownies respectively, for I have great tried-and-tested roll-outs for these in my recipe armoury. And each of these has been my must-bring ticket entry to parties many times, I am so proud to say.

So I thought it would be nice to give you my recipes for my party contributions through the summer. 
Maybe you have a Pot Luck party invite and are looking for inspiration.
 Perhaps you can even imagine I am arriving at your party with a platter of whatever is on the blog!

Hold that thought, peeps, as I give you today's recipe.



Coronation Chicken


This dish is perfect for summer and also for a winter buffet dish. 
The recipe is loosely based on a Tracklements recipe that I picked up years ago (Waitrose often stocks the brand).  When I say loosely, the loose bit is that I've found short cuts over the years, based on the "life is too short" principle.


Ingredients

1 medium chicken, roasted, cooled and shredded* (boil bones and skin for stock if roasting your own)
Bunch of spring onions, sliced
150gr apricot chutney (I always use Tracklements Apricot & Ginger chutney, it's delicious!)
100gr crème fraiche or Greek natural yoghurt
200gr mayonnaise (full-fat, low-fat just doesn't have the flavour)
1 mango, chopped into small cubes (now you can wait for your mango to ripen, then peel and cut it. potentially causing serious knife damage to a digit - or you can used tinned mangos, and I guess you know what I use!)
NB: a more traditional alternative to mango is to use about a dozen dried apricots, chopped finely
3 tbspns sliced toasted almonds (buy ready sliced and toasted of course!)
Curry powder to taste (the above chutney is already spiced but I always add extra curry flavour)
2 tbspns chopped fresh coriander
Salt and pepper to taste


* I buy ready-roasted; there are some things in life that really are no longer worth the effort, and roasting a chicken then leaving it to cool before you even start on this recipe is to me rather insane!


Experiencing a Nigella moment, I was inspired to video my ingredients.  It was incredibly amateur!


Method

 

1.  Mix the chutney, mayonnaise, crème fraiche (or yoghurt), spring onions and curry powder together.
2. Gently fold in the chicken, mango (or apricots),  almonds and coriander, reserving a little of the latter two for garnish.
3. Add salt and pepper to taste.
4.  Place in in serving dish and garnish with remaining coriander and almonds.
5.  Place in in serving dish and garnish with remaining coriander and almonds.


Enjoy!



Served here with shredded lettuce, boiled new potatoes and home made Danish Cucumber Salad

And there you have it.  Just four short, simple steps to attaining Domestic Goddess status, as whether you are serving this at home or taking it to a party, it will go down soooo well.

Now, a warning to self.  I have made this so often over the years that I stopped looking at the recipe.


This is the recipe.

And this is where I keep it.

 Saving card recipes can get a bit messy. Where do you store your card recipes?   I store all my card recipes in this Danish recipe folder and over time I've just added my own.
And the reason I'm showing you the recipe card is because I recently made this dish, off-piste as usual.  I should have at the very least glanced at the recipe card because, to be honest, I was a bit off with the ratio of mayo to crème fraiche and used too much of the latter - it was a bit slushier than usual. It turns out that the mayo to crème fraiche ratio is pretty important in Coronation Chicken.  Ooops!

So I quickly took a photo of the recipe as an aide memoire and hopefully next time I will remember to check out the recipe before I start my Domestic Goddesstry.


If you don't already have your own recipe for this classic dish, dear reader, please do try my recipe for Coronation Chicken, it really is the Jewel In My Crown and could be in yours too!


A la perchoine.



10 comments:

  1. Hello Pensioner and thanks for sharing this tasty looking recipe. I am not sure that I can find the canned mangoes here but the fresh ones are really easy to find in our stores right now-and mostly ripe so no time is lost in waiting for them to be enjoyable. Completely agree about the ready to eat chicken-I find that the broth I do keep IF I roast a chicken stays in my freezer and gets all crystallized and I end up throwing it out-why worry about it in the first place and I don't heat up the house with a hot oven. Thanks too for sharing the Danish cucumber salad-remember something similar from childhood home and will make that as well. Finally, I did read the post from a year ago and can share my opinion that Jones New York clothing, along with others like Liz Claiborne and Dana Buchman seem to be less well made than they used to be. Colors are not wearable for me and the cuts are not flattering-again for me at least. I find some of the most well-made and chicest clothes recently are worth the hunt in local high-end consignment stores. We have several and they are the source of many memorable afternoons with one of my gal pals. Cocktails optional!!! Have a wonderful day:)

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    1. Hi Jules, I'm OK with stock freezing, which forms the base for so many soups. Please let me know how your salad making goes as I'd love to hear how your Aarhus granny made it.
      Shame about JoNY, eh, used to love that brand for work clothes. Now, consignment stores - is that what we call factory outlets, I wonder? And how can cocktails be optional? :-).
      Happy day, happy weekend, x.

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    2. Jones New York used to feature Petite sizes. Can't find those online any more.

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    3. Oh that's a shame. I don't usually search out petite apart from when looking for jeans and trousers. Have they stopped doing shorter legs? With skirts and dresses I need all the length I can get to hide my knees!

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  2. Happy Weekend to you! In my area,consignment stores sell donated items that are still in gorgeous condition for a fraction of the cost and the person donating the items gets a percentage of the sale or store credit in some cases. It really is fun to look around in stores that sit in fancier areas as the clothes are essentially unworn by ladies who have WAY more disposable income than I ever will. We do have factory outlets here as well. I purchased 3 blouses at the Banana Republic outlet store recently-this season or last year possibly and drastically reduced in price. I guess that's the difference between the two stores?? One assumes that consignment items were worn and then discarded but that's not always the case. As for cocktails, one wants to make good purchasing/style/flattering fit types of decisions...(she says as she fondly remembers the giggles from one martini too many with gal pal and the looks of the other shoppers!!! teehee teehee) Cucumbers are in refrigerator, salad making this weekend for sure!

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    1. Thanks for clarifying, I don't think we have the equivalent of consignment stores over here, certainly not on the island anyway but maybe in places like London there is something similar. Good luck with your salad making!

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  3. Thanks for sharing this Mary, I've been looking for this recipe for ages, so I'll be trying this out soon. I've tried this once before, but it was very grainy, so I'm sure this will be lovely. Jacqui
    www.mummabstylish.com

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    1. Hi Jacqui, I've tried a few including a very complicated one from dear Mary Berry. This one works and is delicious, but careful with the creme Francine!

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  4. Sounds delicious Mary. I do have one problem I'm not sure if I ever mentioned my allergies? There is only one item in this recipe that I can eat, and that would be the fresh chicken! Sad huh? xx
    www.vanityandmestyle.com

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    1. Hi Laurie. Well, my body manages to eat the mayo and cream, the nuts and fruit and hot spices, and your chicken-only body is the one looking gorgeous in her swimsuit recently! Maybe not so sad, huh?!!

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