Coronation chicken

Coronation Chicken

Coronation chicken is a combination of precooked cold chicken meat, herbs and spices, and a creamy mayonnaise-based sauce which can be eaten as a salad or used to fill sandwiches.^[1]

Composition

Normally bright yellow, coronation chicken is usually flavoured with curry powder or paste, although more sophisticated versions of the recipe are made using fresh herbs and spices and additional ingredients such as almonds, raisins, and crème fraîche. The original dish used curry powder, as fresh curry spices were almost unobtainable in post-war Britain.

History

Constance Spry, a florist, and Rosemary Hume, a chef, are credited with the invention of coronation chicken.^[2][3] Preparing the food for the banquet of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, Spry proposed the recipe of cold chicken, curry cream sauce and dressing that would later become known as coronation chicken.^[4]

Coronation chicken may have been inspired by jubilee chicken, a dish prepared for the silver jubilee of George V in 1935, which mixed chicken with mayonnaise and curry. Additionally, for the Queen's Golden Jubilee in 2002, another celebratory dish was devised, also called "jubilee chicken".^[2]

Coronation chicken appealed to a Britain that was not quite ready for the ready meal: it was easy to make but it still gave the cook something to do. In the 1950s, eating in front of the TV became commonplace, but television viewing was highest among the over-forties, who were more likely to be accomplished cooks. For this new generation of TV viewers, dishes such as coronation chicken offered the right blend of convenience and culinary skill. It is not quite such a voguish dish today, and is most often encountered as a filling for shop-bought sandwiches.^[5]

References

1. ^ The Sunday Times (1 July 2007). "Coronation Chicken". Times Online (London). http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/recipes/article1980009.ece. Retrieved 1 October 2007. 
2. ^ ^{a b} "Recipe for Jubilee Chicken". royal.gov.uk. Archived from the original on 5 February 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080205200851/http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page1206.asp. Retrieved 28 November 2010. 
3. ^ The Daily Telegraph (1 June 2002). "Readers' recipes: Coronation chicken 2002". telegraph.co.uk (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/wine/main.jhtml?xml=/wine/2002/06/01/edrrec01.xml. Retrieved 1 October 2007. 
4. ^ Buckingham Palace. "50 Facts About The Queen's Coronation". royal.gov.uk. Archived from the original on 13 May 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080513162234/http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/page4455.asp. Retrieved 28 November 2010. 
5. ^ Chicken Elisabeth

External links

• The Recipe for Coronation Chicken
• Modern interpretation by Pret A Manger
• Blog post on the origins and whether it has links to the Coronation Sussex breed of chicken
• Prize-winning recipe from Telegraph's 2002 contest