With a royal coronation just around the corner I've decided to make that English classic
coronation chicken using the original recipe from 1953.
So thank you to Wondrium for sponsoring this video as I crown some poultry
this time on Tasting History.
So this dish coronation chicken was first served at the coronation luncheon
following the crowning of Queen Elizabeth II on June 2nd 1953.
Since then it has become a staple of English cuisine
though often bears merely a passing resemblance to the original version today.
It's made in all sorts of ways sometimes with mango chutney, or raisins or almonds,
sour cream, Greek yogurt and often it's chopped into small pieces and used as a sandwich filling.
There was even one rather unique version created on the occasion of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee
from the great minds that brought us the Double Down several KFC locations in the UK offered the coronation chicken Tower Burger
where the sauce was served as coronation mayo "fresh out of Cluckingham Palace".
They also claimed that the "...pesky raisins have abdicated from the recipe."
But in fact raisins were never even in the original recipe,
nor was the hash brown patty which could be found on the KFC version.
No, the original recipe as written in 'The Constance Spray Cookery Book' was described described as
"a chicken dish which was distinguished mainly by a delicate and nut-like flavor in the sauce...
For one would not venture to serve, to a large number of guests of varying and unknown tastes,
a curry dish in the generally accepted sense of this term."
Indeed so for this recipe what you'll need is: four large chicken breasts or really any other part of the chicken that you might like to use.
Six cups or one and a half liters of water and two cups or 475 milliliters of white wine mixed in a pot.
A chopped carrot, a bouquet garni, that is a little bundle of herbs that is tied together and the herbs that you use are really up to you but
common herbs include rosemary, sage, parsley, thyme, or really any other savory herbs.
The one herb I would steer clear of is mint because it tends to just overwhelm everything.
Then two tablespoons of salt and three to four peppercorns.
Then the recipe says to poach the chicken so put the chicken in a pot with the liquid.
Then add the salt, carrot, bouquet garni, and the peppercorns and set it over a medium low heat
and the point here is to raise the temperature very, very slowly so that it cooks all the way throughout without
overcooking the outside and under cooking the inside.
You want to continue to let the water temperature raise until it just starts to let off bubbles from the bottom,
and then immediately turn off the heat and cover it with a lid.
Let it cook in there for five to ten minutes or until the internal temperature of the chicken reaches 150 degrees Fahrenheit.
Then immediately take them out of the water. You want to start checking around five minutes
because you don't want to go much beyond that 150 degrees,
and it's harder to uncook something.
Then let them rest for at least five minutes though preferably for this dish let them cool completely.
Now this process of poaching is quite different from the process of boiling chicken
and it can lead to a wonderfully tender version of chicken but
it's often done incorrectly even though it's a rather basic skill
so I'm trying to get better at some of these basic skills
which is is why I'm really enjoying the Wondrium course 'Elevate Your Everyday Cooking with Curtis Stone.'
He's a Michelin star Chef who walked you through some of these basic skills with simple ingredients
but then shows you how to combine those skills to create some really spectacular dishes.
I also love his wonderful Australian accent. It's just fun to listen to,
and that's actually something that makes Wondrium very special,
it's the people who are teaching the courses.
I mean they have courses on everything from history to science, economics, travel, or how to learn skills like painting or woodworking
but I really appreciate that all the people teaching these courses are experts in their field who clearly have a passion for what they're teaching,
making it just so much more engaging to watch or in my case often to listen to
because I've started to download them and listen to them as podcasts while I'm in the car or at the gym.
Their library is constantly evolving so whether you want to
elevate your everyday cooking or really learn about anything else
then you can get a free trial by using my link in the description wondrium.com/tasting history
but first we should start this cream of curry sauce and like pretty much anything that has curry in it
there are quite a bit of ingredients, so here we go.
First heat one tablespoon of oil in a saucepan and add 50 grams or a half cup of finely chopped onion.
Cook over a medium heat for three to four minutes and then add two heaping teaspoons of curry powder,
and cook it for another couple of minutes keeping the heat rather low.
Then you need one large teaspoon of tomato puree, a half cup or 120 milliliters of red wine,
six tablespoons or 90 milliliters of water and the obligatory bay leaf.
Add all of those into the saucepan and bring it to a gentle boil
and once it's boiling add a half teaspoon of salt, one teaspoon of brown sugar and a half teaspoon of pepper
along with two slices of lemon and a good squeeze of lemon juice.
Let it all cook for about a minute and then give it a taste and
here she says you can add more of any ingredient to adjust the flavors to adjust the flavors to what you you want.
Then let the sauce simmer uncovered for 10 minutes while you prepare the other ingredients.
You'll need a half tablespoon or so of apricot puree or spread,
a little more than one and three-fourths cup or 450 grams of mayonnaise.
That's a lot of mayonnaise by the way. <_<
Then you'll need three tablespoons of lightly whipped cream which you can make fresh by lightly whipping cream
and you'll need a little bit more at the end so go ahead and whip more than three tablespoons worth.
Now once the sauce is simmered for 10 minutes take it off the heat,
and strain it into a bowl and then let it cool completely.
And once it's cool mix together the incredible amount of mayonnaise and apricot puree
then little by little add in the cooled sauce until it's as strong as you like.
You're probably going to want all of it. Also she says here too you can add more of pretty much any of the ingredients to make it taste how you want.
Then take a little of the finished sauce and mix it with a little extra whipped cream, and then coat the chicken in that.
And she gives you options of either cutting it before you coat it and then coating it,
or coating it and then cutting it kind of depending on how you want to serve it
but either way you're going to be pouring more sauce over it at the end so it really doesn't matter.
She also says "This is an admirable sauce to serve with iced lobster."
So keep some extra sauce for all those iced lobsters you just have laying around the house,
and then that's pretty much it. That is the coronation chicken but
"For convenience in serving on the occasion mentioned the chicken was arranged at one end of an oblong dish,
and a rice salad was arranged at the other."
And I'll walk you through that very simple rice salad once we look at the origins of coronation chicken.
Now who receives credit for the creation of coronation chicken is really a matter of debate.
It often goes to Constance Spry as the recipe first appeared in the 'Constance Spry Cookery Book'
but she wrote that cookbook with her business partner Rosemary Hume.
Now since the book bears Constance Spry's name and she did most of the actual writing
she is often given most of the credit,
but it was Rosemary who was an accomplished Le Cordon Bleu trained chef and founder of one of London's top cooking schools.
Constance Spry on the other hand was a celebrity florist who had been commissioned to arrange the flowers at Westminster Abbey
and along the processional route fromBuckingham Palace for Queen Elizabeth II's coronation.
So with that knowledge my money is on most of the work being done by Rosemary Hume
the cook rather than Constance Spry the florist.
Also the original name of the dish was not coronation chicken but 'Poulet Reine Elizabeth',
a name that seems fitting for a dish create hit by a Le Cordon Bleu chef.
She even went so far as to name her cooking school after Le Cordon Bleu,
she called it L'école de Petit Cordon Bleu which she opened in 1933.
And 20 years later in 1953 the Minister of Works
asked Rosemary Hume and her students to create the menu for the coronation luncheon.
Now according to one of the students at the school Angela Wood
she was actually the one who did much of the work in creating a dish
for this 350 person luncheon, most of the guests being foreign dignitaries.
"[This required] something that had a bit of flavor but not too much.
Thus "For a month or more, I was cooking a chicken a day and we had to alter the balance of the spices in the sauce to get it right."
So I'm going to be diplomatic and say that the creation of this coronation chicken was likely a group effort.
So something also interesting about that Coronation Day luncheon is that according to Queen Elizabeth's schedule...
she probably didn't even attend.
The meal was served promptly at two following the coronation just across the way at Westminster school,
but according to the diary that day Queen Elizabeth dined in the annex of the Abbey itself
and not on a particularly fancy lunch.
It was a quick packed lunch of smoked salmon, foie gras, sausage rolls, cheese and biscuits,
but just because she didn't get to enjoy her namesake dish that day it doesn't mean that she didn't get to try it later,
and she really really enjoyed it.
Darren McGrady Royal Chef for 11 years said that
"At Balmoral Castle, where [the queen] spends the summer, Coronation chicken features heavily."
Now just as the creator of coronation chicken is up for debate so is its inspiration.
Some claim that fit was inspired by Jubilee chicken that was made on the occasion of George V's Silver Jubilee in 1935.
It also had a sauce with curry powder but there is no real evidence intends to claim that
one influenced the other as sauce on chicken is pretty common
and curry powder in English cooking at the time was pretty much compulsory.
Another claim was that it was inspired by the cuisine of the tables of Medieval English kings
and while its combination of sweet and savory flavors is rather Medieval
the ingredients used are anything but
though I do find this theory interesting because the dish
somewhat reminds me of another chicken dish associated with English coronations
for the better part of 800 years. It was called dillegrout and I did an entire video on it
but in short it was a sweet and savory chicken stew that instead of curry powder
was flavored with just a little bit of rose water. It's like a really floral barbecue sauce and it's fantastic,
and is one of the recipes that appears in the Tasting History cookbook on sale now at bookstores or online.
But I digress, this chicken dillegrout actually began life at the Coronation of William the Conqueror in 1066
and it was featured at every Coronation banquet until that of King George IV in 1821.
This is perhaps one of the most important Coronation banquets in British history as it was by far the largest.
The banquet included thousands of dishes and the first course was brought in by a procession of 47 people
some of whom were on horseback.
The guests were all dressed in Tudor and Stuart-style garb and the entire event was filled with spectacle,
like the entrance of the King's Champion a member of the Dymoke family of Lincolnshire
who rode into the hall wearing a suit of armor.
"After everyone had taken his seat, the Champion on his horse, both in full armor,
rode up the hall, and threw down a gauntlet before the king, while the Heralds proclaimed that he was ready to do battle
with anyone who denied that George the Fourth was the liege lord of the realms.
Then various persons presented offerings to the king in right of which they held their estates.
One gentleman presented a beautiful pair of falcons in their hoods."
The entire event was put on at a cost of 250,000 pounds,
THEN in 1821
which today is an estimated 27 million pounds for one event.
The cost was so immense that 10 years later when George's younger brother was crowned William IV
the memory and the sting of the banquet's cost still loomed overhead.
Between that and a decade of lavish spending under George IV the crown was pretty much broke and so
William IV decided to not have a banquet at all,
and that actually became the norm for quite some time.
George the Fourth's is really considered the last coronation banquet,
at least the type that was filled with pomp and circumstance and lots of other things going on.
Today instead it's less of a Coronation banquet and more of a banquet on the occasion of the coronation,
a small but important difference.
One way that they've downsized is to move the banquets from Westminster Hall where thousands of guests could attend
to the more sensible ballroom at Buckingham Palace, a very understated residence if I've ever seen one.
And that is where for the two nights following her coronation in June of 1953
Queen Elizabeth II held her coronation banquets for a sensible 400 guests,
and instead of hundreds or even thousands of dishes the entire menu could be printed on one side of a small sheet of paper.
And one thing that was not served was coronation chicken which had only been served at that luncheon which Elizabeth didn't even attend.
See they were walking a fine line at the time.
Rationing while not as strict as during World War II was nonetheless still in effect in the UK in 1953
so there was a need to show frugality even on the part of the Queen.
On the other hand when you show up to Buckingham Palace dressed to the nines
you're gonna expect something a little more fancy then a chicken dish that could easily be bought at Tesco,
but I think they walked that fine line rather adeptly.
While not as many dishes were available they were still served on 18th century porcelain
and the tables were set with silver gilt table settings from the Grand Service,
the ones used at George IV's coronation banquet, the one that cost so much.
And while there were far fewer dishes the ones that were served were much more elegant than those of the luncheon like coronation chicken.
The meal included a clear turtle soup, a rack of lamb with new potatoes, asparagus with a mousseline sauce,
and a strawberry dessert named after Elizabeth herself,
though it was all in French because you know French is fancy.
There was even a course of filet of sole named after the young Prince Charles,
and I think it would be so cool if for his coronation dinner he had the same dish but instead
call it "délices de soles Roi Charles"
but the Earl Marshall who is in charge of setting up the entire coronation has yet to reach out and ask for my opinion,
though if anyone is friends or perhaps neighbors with Edward Fitzalan-Howard Duke of Norfolk
let him know my idea, he can take all the credit.
I'm actually really curious to see what ends up being served at King Charles's coronation dinner
though from the rumors flying around it is going to be rather simple and from his tastes,
probably will not be featuring coronation chicken either the modern version or
this version which was served for his mother in 1953 which
still needs a rice salad.
"The rice salad which accompanied the chicken was of carefully cooked rice, cooked peas,
diced raw cucumber, and finely chopped mixed herbs, all mixed in a well-seasoned French dressing."
Like I said super simple. Rice, peas, cucumber, herbs.
What's a little unclear is exactly what the French dressing was, it probably wasn't a creamy
French dressing but rather a French vinaigrette even then,
though there are lots of versions of French vinaigrette so just pick one. :D
And here we are coronation chicken from the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
So again it is served cold so don't heat it up.
Hmm.
Hm!
Fantastic.
Fantastic. The chicken is so tender
which doesn't always happen when you poach chicken,
but it's the sauce. That's where all the flavor is,
and it's just wonderful. There's like a mild hint of curry but it's not really-
it's not strong at all. They did a good job kind of balancing that out.
There is a sweetness to it
because of of the apricot and the sugar,
but it's also not really sweet which is so often what happens when you get
coronation chicken today, it's just super, super sweet.
This is much more subtle. It's creamy because of the incredible amount of mayonnaise
but it's not stodgy, and just like gloopy. It's nice and smooth.
Fantastic. Let me give the the rice salad- again, super simple.
It tastes like rice. It's the chicken that's special.
So whether you are celebrating Charles's coronation, or you couldn't care less
you should care to make this dish because it's it's really, really good
and definitely worth your time.
So make sure you get a copy of the Tasting History cookbook out in stores now,
and leave a review wherever you get it it really helps out I would really appreciate it,
and I will see you next time on Tasting History.