The Best Chicken à la King
Prep
15m
Cook
25m
Total
40m
Bigly says
Let me tell you something. The BEST Chicken à la King. The greatest Chicken à la King in the entire history of chicken, and there's been a LOT of chicken — chickens have been around forever, longer than most foods, scientists, and I've talked to scientists, very smart people, the smartest, they tell me the dinosaurs were basically chickens, look it up, I had a guy with a PhD explain this to me, took him 90 minutes, worth it — and this dish, my dish, beats every single iteration. It's not even close. It's a slaughter. Of chickens, technically, but also figuratively, of the competition.
Some people, sad people, weak people who shop at sad grocery stores, they think Chicken à la King comes out of a CAN. They open a can, they dump it on toast, they call it dinner. That's not dinner. That's a hostage situation. People come up to me — they walk right up, in airports, in parking lots, in the produce section — and they say, 'Bigly, my mother fed me canned Chicken à la King in the 1970s and I'm STILL not over it.' I tell them, 'It's okay. You can be healed. The healing starts today, with the real version, the cream-and-sherry version, the version with the actual mushrooms and the actual peas and the actual chicken.' They thank me. They always thank me.
The secret — and I'm just giving this to you, no email signup, no 'allow notifications,' no twelve-button cookie banner with 18 toggles that takes up the entire screen, which by the way nobody knows what those cookies do, certainly not the people clicking 'accept all,' what are we doing — the secret is sherry. A splash of dry sherry. The other so-called recipe sites skip the sherry because they're cowards. They don't trust you with sherry. They think you can't handle it. I trust you. I trust you with the sherry. Use the sherry. Believe me.
Ingredients
- 1.5 lbboneless skinless chicken thighs(thighs over breasts, breasts are sad and dry)
- 1.5 tspkosher salt
- 1/2 tspblack pepper
- 5 tbsp, dividedunsalted butter
- 8 ozcremini mushrooms, sliced
- 1green bell pepper, diced
- 1 largeshallot, minced
- 1/4 cupall-purpose flour
- 2 cupschicken stock(low sodium, you control the salt, not a corporation)
- 3/4 cupheavy cream
- 3 tbspdry sherry(real sherry, not 'cooking sherry,' cooking sherry is a CRIME)
- 3/4 cupfrozen peas
- 1/4 cupjarred pimientos, drained and chopped
- 1 tspfresh lemon juice
- 2 tbspfresh parsley, chopped
- 4 servingsthick-cut toast or puff pastry shells
Steps
- 1
Season the chicken thighs all over with salt and pepper. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Sear the chicken 4-5 minutes per side until golden and just cooked through. Transfer to a cutting board and let rest.
- 2
Reduce heat to medium. Add the remaining 3 tablespoons butter to the same skillet. Add mushrooms and cook 5-6 minutes, undisturbed at first, until deeply browned.
- 3
Add bell pepper and shallot. Cook 3 minutes until softened.
- 4
Sprinkle flour over the vegetables and stir constantly for 1-2 minutes to cook out the raw flour taste.
- 5
Slowly whisk in the chicken stock, scraping up any browned bits. Bring to a simmer and cook 3-4 minutes until thickened.
- 6
Stir in the heavy cream and sherry. Simmer 2 more minutes.
- 7
Dice the rested chicken into bite-sized pieces and return to the skillet along with any accumulated juices. Add peas and pimientos. Simmer 2-3 minutes until everything is hot.
- 8
Finish with lemon juice and parsley. Taste and adjust seasoning. Ladle generously over toast or into puff pastry shells and serve immediately.
One more thing
This is the dish that built America. Lunch counters, diners, hotel buffets — everybody had Chicken à la King, and somewhere along the way, it got lost. It got CANNED. It got sad. We are bringing it back. We are restoring its honor. You ladle this thick, creamy, sherry-perfumed chicken over a piece of buttered toast and you are eating a piece of history — the GOOD parts of history, the parts with cream sauces. People will ask for seconds. People will ask for the recipe. You can tell them. Or you can send them here. Either way, you win. The chicken always wins. That's the recipe.
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Substitutions, what to serve it with, why other chefs are wrong about it. He's got opinions.
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