As the days get shorter and the evenings cooler, I find that I crave comfort foods. So when I saw a hundred-year-old recipe for Chicken à la Crème, I decided to give it a try. Chicken, sliced mushrooms, and chopped red pepper are embedded in a rich, creamy sauce that is served over toast.
This recipe is a keeper. I’ll definitely make Chicken à la Crème again. It is quick and easy to make, and very tasty.
Here’s the original recipe:
Is Chicken à la Crème another name for Chicken à la King? A few years ago I made a recipe for Chicken à la King that was similar to this one. Both recipes called for chicken and mushrooms. This recipe called for red pepper; Chicken à la King called for green pepper as well as for a small amount of onion. For this recipe, the sauce was a white sauce; the sauce for Chicken à la King was made using cream, chicken broth, and lemon juice.
Here’s the Chicken à la Crème recipe updated for modern cooks:
Chicken a la Creme
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1 1/2 cups cooked chicken, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
1 red pepper, finely chopped
2 cup milk
Melt the butter in a saucepan. Stir the flour into the butter; stir in salt and pepper. While stirring constantly, slowly pour in milk and bring to a boil over medium heat. Stir in the chicken, mushrooms, and red pepper. Bring back to a boil; remove from heat. Serve over toast.
A Hundred Years Ago 
I’ve never heard this name for the dish, but it certainly is almost identical to what we called Chicken a la King — or just creamed chicken. Sometimes we’d throw in a few chopped carrots and onion, and it made an easy substitute for chicken pot pie when we were too lazy to make the crusts.
Carrots and onions would be a nice addition. This recipe is definitely much easier to make than chicken pot pie.
Army SOS with chicken instead of beef?
Hahahaha!
That was my first thought too!!
GMTA
When you look at old recipes they are often designed to cover the taste of ingredients gone bad and cook long enough to kill microorganisms.
Look up Sour Bratten (sp?). Soak for days to kill stuff and kill bad things and make tough cuts edible.
Interesting. . . Hopefully foods historically prepared in ways that covered any off-tastes and were cooked for a long time, were safe to eat after they are cooked.
Where is Alton Brown’s food anthropologist when you need her?
hmm- I guess they are somewhat similar, though I personally like the beef version, and call it by its more refined name: Creamed Beef on Toast.
This reminds me of some stuff you used to be able to get in a tin… Very similar ingredients and you put it on your toast and put it under the grill for a couple of minutes.
I wonder if they still make the canned version.
I think they used to “cream” just about everything they had left over!
Creamed foods (vegetables, fish, meats, etc.) were very popular a hundred years ago.
It was a great way of extending a food, and added calories!
How true!
That definitely is comfort food.
Good to hear that you also think this is a comfort food.
My mother insisted I learn two recipes before I left home: white sauce and turkey gravy. She put everything into white sauce from tuna to chipped beef. Me not so much.
I knew how to make white sauce when I left home, but didn’t learn how to make gravy. I still struggle when I occasionally need to make gravy. I’m not sure why I never learned how to make gravy when I was young, because it was often served at family meals.
Gravy and white sauce are actually quite similar as the flour and butter make the base for the liquid.
So easy and much healthier than the canned variety! Our weather is cooling down with the first cool front going through right now, perfect for this comfort food dish!
Fall is definitely in the air.
Creamed mushrooms on toast is a personal fav…I love to add Swiss