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.