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Creamed Chicken
2 cups cold cooked chicken, cut in dice 2 cups White Sauce II 1/8 teaspoon celery salt Heat chicken dice in sauce, to which celery salt has been added.
A two-line assembly recipe that depends entirely on the sauce it is built on. The chicken is already cooked; the only work is a well-made béchamel and gentle reheating.
- White Sauce IIBooks of this period that number their white sauces generally run them from thin to thick, in which case number two would be the medium or standard pouring sauce. A medium white sauce is conventionally about 2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons flour to 1 cup of milk, so for the 2 cups called for here, 4 tablespoons each of butter and flour with 2 cups milk. If this book's own White Sauce II page is to hand, follow it in preference.
- Cook the rouxLet the butter and flour bubble together for a minute or two before the milk goes in, or the sauce tastes pasty. Add the milk gradually and whisk until it thickens and comes to a simmer, then season with salt and white pepper — the celery salt alone will not carry the dish.
- Reheat, do not boil downThe chicken is cooked. It only needs to come up to temperature in the sauce over low heat, five minutes or so. Held at a boil it turns stringy and the sauce thickens past pouring consistency.
- Celery saltAn eighth of a teaspoon is a light hand by modern taste. Add it, taste, and adjust.
- The chickenMeat from a poached bird or leftover roast both work, cut in half-inch dice. Save the poaching liquid and replace half the milk with it for markedly better flavour.
- Yield and servingServes four modestly. It was meant to be spooned over toast points, split baking-powder biscuits, rice or in patty shells; on its own it is a sauce looking for a base.
- Thinning on standingThickening on standing -- The sauce sets as it cools and tightens further if held. Loosen with a spoonful of milk or stock just before serving rather than starting with a thin sauce.
Creamed chicken belongs to the great age of the white sauce, when American cooking schools taught béchamel in graded thicknesses, and some books numbered them so that a recipe could simply call for "White Sauce II" and be understood. The graded-sauce approach is associated above all with the Boston Cooking School and the teaching of Fannie Farmer, and it turned cold roast chicken into a hot supper dish with almost no labour. Served over toast or in pastry shells it was standard luncheon fare for clubs, church suppers and convalescents alike, and it belongs to the same family as chicken à la king and the creamed chicken on biscuits still found on American tables.