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Chicken or Veal a la King
2 tablespoons Mazola 2 tablespoons diced pimientoes 2 tablespoons diced green peppers 3/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon paprika 3 tablespoons Argo or Kingsford's Cornstarch 2 cups rich milk or light cream 2½ cups diced cooked veal or chicken 1 cup diced mushrooms Buttered toast Cook the peppers and pimientoes gently in the Mazola till the pepper is soft. Add the cornstarch and seasonings and gradually stir in the milk. Bring to boiling point and add the chicken and mushrooms. If fresh mushrooms are used, they should be boiled five minutes. Serve on toast.
A promotional recipe from a corn-products company, so the fat and the thickener are both corn-based. It works, but it behaves differently from a flour-and-butter version and needs a slightly different hand.
- Brand names decodedMazola is corn oil; Argo and Kingsford's are cornstarch. Any neutral oil and any plain cornstarch will do, though butter gives a rounder flavour.
- The hinge: stir the starch in off the heatCornstarch added to hot oil and then hit with milk can go lumpy. Take the pan off the burner, stir the starch into the oil and vegetables to a smooth paste, then add the milk a little at a time before returning it to the heat.
- It must actually boilCornstarch does not reach full thickening power until the sauce comes to a boil; short of that it stays thin and tastes raw and chalky. Bring it up gently, stirring, and let it bubble for a minute before the meat goes in.
- Three tablespoons is a firm sauceThat much cornstarch to two cups of liquid gives a distinctly thick blanket rather than a pourable one. Two tablespoons is closer to modern taste if you want it to flow around the toast.
- "Rich milk"Whole milk, or half-and-half if you want it closer to the cream option. Cornstarch sauces made with cream can break if held at a hard boil, so pull it back to a simmer once thickened.
- MushroomsThe recipe assumes canned mushrooms, which is why fresh ones get a separate instruction. Fresh mushrooms are better sauteed in a little oil until their water has cooked off than boiled five minutes, which leaves them waterlogged.
- PimientosStill sold in jars, packed in brine. Drain and pat them dry or they will thin the sauce and tint it pink.
- YieldAbout four generous suppers over toast, or six if you are stretching it into patty shells or over rice.
The origin of a la King is genuinely contested and every account is traditional rather than documented: it has been credited to Foxhall Keene at Delmonico's, to a chef named King at the Bellevue in Philadelphia, and to E. Clark King, proprietor of the Brighton Beach Hotel, whose chef is said to have named the dish for him; a Claridge's version of the story also circulates. By the 1920s the dish was a common American way to use cooked poultry, and the restaurant version is usually finished with egg yolks and sherry. This one has neither, because it comes from a booklet published to sell corn oil and cornstarch, and the substitution of a cornstarch sauce for a butter-and-flour veloute is the point of the exercise. Veal appears alongside chicken as an equal option.