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Minced Chicken, with Mushrooms
Chop moderately fine one pound of canned or cooked chicken. Cut one-half pint of mushrooms into small pieces, let them boil in their liquor, and stir for five minutes; then skim out the mushrooms, and set them aside to keep hot. Add, if needful, enough milk to produce a coffee-cup of liquid. Beat one tablespoon of flour in a little milk, and add to it a saltspoon of salt, one-half saltspoon, scanty, of white pepper and a tablespoon of butter. Stir this mixture into the liquid, and when the whole has boiled three minutes, add the mushrooms and chopped chicken, and cook three minutes longer, stirring continually.
A creamed chicken filling built on mushroom liquor rather than plain milk, which is where most of its flavor comes from. It belongs to the era of chafing dishes and patty shells, and it comes together in about ten minutes.
- Don't lose the liquorThe mushroom cooking liquid is the sauce. Milk is added only to top it up to the required volume, so use the liquid from canned mushrooms, or cook fresh ones in a splash of water and butter until they release their juices.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. So: 1/4 teaspoon salt and a scant 1/8 teaspoon white pepper. Taste at the end; canned chicken and canned mushrooms both carry their own salt.
- A coffee-cup of liquidNot an exact measure in period usage. Reckon on 3/4 cup to 1 cup of liquid total; a scant cup gives a sauce that coats without being stiff.
- Half a pint of mushroomsA volume measure, not a weight — roughly 2 to 3 ounces of fresh mushrooms cut small, or one small can, drained with the liquid reserved.
- The flour slurryBeating flour into cold milk rather than cooking a roux is faster but leaves a raw-starch edge if hurried. The three minutes of boiling specified is the minimum; give it four or five and stir the whole time, or the flour will catch.
- Chicken is already cookedThe final three minutes are for heating through, nothing more. Cooked breast meat chopped fine turns dry and stringy if held at a boil, so add it, bring the pan back to a bare simmer, and stop.
- Yield and servingAbout four cups, enough for four to six as a light dish. It suits toast points, patty shells, croustades, or a chafing dish at supper; a spoonful of cream or a little lemon at the end lifts it.
The Butterick Publishing Company sold dress patterns, and its cookbooks were part of a wider business in telling American women how to run a respectable household — which by this period meant knowing what to do with canned goods. This recipe assumes them openly: canned chicken, canned mushrooms, and the liquor in the tin treated as a resource rather than something to pour away. Creamed minced chicken with mushrooms sits alongside the chafing-dish dishes that filled club and hotel menus around the turn of the century, and it belongs to a family of white-sauce preparations that let a small quantity of meat stretch across a table. The method was readily reused with oysters, sweetbreads or veal as the larder allowed.