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Chicken a LA King

Chicken à la King is a creamy chicken dish with mushrooms, green pepper, and a butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and chicken are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Chicken a LA King

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the vegetables

  1. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a pan.

  2. Add mushrooms and green pepper.

  3. Cook uncovered until fairly dry.

Make the sauce

  1. In another pan, melt 2 tablespoons of butter.

  2. Whisk in flour, salt, and paprika.

  3. Gradually add milk and chicken stock, stirring until smooth.

  4. Remove from heat.

  5. Stir in beaten egg yolks and lemon juice.

Combine and serve

  1. Add the cooked mushrooms, green pepper, and diced chicken.

  2. Heat thoroughly.

  3. Serve on toast, in Swedish timbales, or in patty shells.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Mushroom + chickentop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Mushroom + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,231 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth, stable sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich the sauce and add body as they thicken gently with heat.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the sauce, giving it richness and body.
Chicken stock
Adds savory depth to the sauce along with the milk.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and texture after cooking off their moisture.
Cooked chicken
Provides the main protein and substance of the dish.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolks. Adding egg yolks to a hot sauce can scramble them. Remove the pan from heat first and stir in the yolks gradually so the sauce thickens smoothly and stays creamy.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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