Home › Poultry and Game › Luncheon Chicken
Luncheon Chicken
1 1/2 cups cold cooked chicken, cut in small dice 2 tablespoons butter 1 slice carrot, cut in small cubes 1 slice onion 2 tablespoons flour 1 cup Chicken Stock Salt Pepper 2/3 cup buttered cracker crumbs 4 eggs Cook butter five minutes with vegetables, add flour, and gradually the stock. Strain, add chicken dice, and season with salt and pepper. turn on a slightly buttered platter and sprinkle with cracker crumbs. Make four nests, and in each nest slip an egg; cover eggs with crumbs, and bake in a moderate oven until whites of eggs are firm.
A creamed-chicken luncheon dish with eggs baked directly into it, from the era when a heavy oval platter went from oven to table. Two details govern the result: the sauce must be thick enough to hold the shape of the nests, and the eggs want a short bake.
- Moderate ovenRoughly 350-375F. The dish is only in long enough to set the egg whites, so preheat fully before it goes in.
- TimingNo time is given. Expect 12 to 15 minutes at 350F, checking from 10. The whites should be opaque and just firm; the yolks will still be soft, which is the intent.
- Use an oven dish, not a platterA "platter" here means an oven-proof earthenware or metal serving dish. A modern china platter or serving plate may not be oven-safe and can crack. A shallow gratin dish or pie plate of about 9 inches does the job.
- The sauce must be stiffTwo tablespoons each of butter and flour to one cup of stock gives a sauce thick enough to mound. Cook it a full minute or two after it comes to the boil so it sets up; a thin sauce will not hold the four hollows and the eggs will slide.
- The vegetables are flavouring onlyThe carrot and onion cook in the butter to season it and are removed when the sauce is strained. Cook them gently so the butter does not brown.
- Buttered cracker crumbsCrush plain crackers (saltines work, with the salt in the sauce reduced) and toss with melted butter, enough to coat -- something on the order of a tablespoon or two of butter for the 2/3 cup called for. Panko or dry breadcrumbs are a fair substitute.
- Chicken stockThe capitalised "Chicken Stock" refers to the book's own recipe. Commercial broth is already salted, so season the finished sauce at the end rather than the start.
- YieldFour servings, one egg apiece. Serve straight from the dish, lifting each nest out with a wide spoon, and eat immediately; the yolks firm up quickly as it stands.