Just try it...

Years of cafeteria eating teaches one to look askance at any savory dish served with an ice cream scoop. Gelatinous spaghetti. Prune whip. Chef’s Surprise.

Chef’s Surprise! How did they ever get us to fall for that? As a grown up no one could persuade you to eat “Chef’s Surprise”…unless, of course, they charged you a hundred bucks for it and called it a “tastings menu.”

Chicken a la King, a prime example of ice cream scoop cafeteria fare, is worth a second look. If prepared well, it’s got a chicken-y flavor kids (and grown ups) love. It’s quick and easy to prepare with the boon of rapid cuisine, a rotisserie chicken. It packs in a fair amount of vegetables. It has a delicious, creamy sauce without a speck of cream (and no condensed soups). And you can make it vegan by replacing the chicken with tofu and the chicken broth with vegan “chick’n” bouillon (at veganessentials.com).

OK, there’s that stick of butter or margarine which stops it from being completely virtuous, so on nights when you serve it, it’s best to skip the Bloomin’ Onion appetizer.

When it comes to kid appeal, I must confess that this wonderful dish was not an immediate hit with my six-year-old son Harry. He took one look at it and pronounced, “It looks like throw up.”

“How ironic you say that, Sugar Lump,” I responded dryly. “It is throw up.”

Of course I didn’t say that. Because you can’t use the word ‘ironic’ on a six year old; they don’t get it.

He was right about the throw up resemblance, however. His skepticism was heightened by the presence of mushrooms, which he hates. It doesn’t help that the first time we tried to feed him mushrooms, my husband Henry described them as a fungus, ”fungus” being a word Harry had only previously heard in TV ads for toenail fungus treatments (on those rare occasions when we allow him to watch anything other than PBS, of course. In French.)

So how did I get the Chicken a la King into Harry’s reluctant mushhog? By using a line that almost always works:

“You don’t have to eat it. You only have to try it.”

As they say, the first bite is the hardest. For some reason the lack of a practical difference between “eating” and “trying” hasn’t occurred to Harry. In the meantime, I’ll bet I could get him to eat worms using this line (not that I plan to, mind you).

Chicken a la King

1-10 ounce package of fresh white button mushrooms, sliced
½ cup (1 stick) margarine or butter
1 green pepper, diced
4 stalks celery, with greens, chopped
½ cup flour
1 tsp. McCormick’s Season All (don’t skip this; it’s really essential)
1 ½ cups plain unsweetened Silk soy milk (green container) or whole milk
1 ¼ cups water
½ cup sherry
1 Tablespoon chicken bouillon concentrate (Better Than Bouillon, for instance)
Cayenne pepper to taste
2 tsp. thyme
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 rotisserie chicken, skinned and cut into 1 inch pieces, or approximately 3-4 cups cooked cubed chicken. Or turkey, for that matter, in which case it would be turkey a la King. Or chicken-flavoured Seitan, making it Seitan a la King, which sounds vaguely Devil-worshipful.
1-7 ounce jar pimientos, chopped
Rice or noodles or biscuits, for serving

Melt butter/margarine in a large skillet over medium heat. Saute mushrooms, green pepper, and celery for five minutes.

Add flour and Season All. Cook over low heat,stirring constantly, for two minutes.

Add all remaining ingredients except chicken, pimientos and rice/noodles/biscuits. Bring to a boil and stir until thickened.

Add chicken and pimientos. Heat through. Adjust seasonings.

Serve over rice or noodles or biscuits. Or all three.


Serves 5.

PS: For an interesting history of Chicken a la King, visit www.leitesculinaria.com.