Saturday, February 06, 2016

Mushrooms Stuffed with Chicken à la King

Wednesday 3 February
Holt hand-picked a pound of mushrooms suitable for stuffing at Findlay Market on Saturday, and we've been pondering what to do with them.  At first we thought it would be funny if we filled them with creamed tuna and green peas, as if it were tuna-noodle casserole enclosed in their own mushrooms instead of cream of mushroom soup.  But when we picked over the roast chicken from yesterday's dinner and got lots of extra tasty scraps, we came up with the perfect idea: Barbara's childhood favorite, chicken à la King.

We cleaned the mushrooms, cut out and trimmed the stems, and diced and sautéed them and some little red peppers in bacon fat in a pan, while the oil-sprinkled mushroom caps had a preliminary toast in the oven for about 15 minutes.  Then we added some flour to the pan to make a roux, poured in heavy cream to thicken, and finally, added the chicken scraps and some breadcrumbs to give it body. 

We piled the resultant mixture into the mushroom caps, topped them with grated cheese, and set them into the oven to brown for another 15 minutes.  And you know, as well as being the perfect 50s pastiche, they tasted really good.

No comments: