Chicken à la King

This is a classic American dish consisting of diced chicken, mushrooms, green peppers and pimientos in a cream sherry sauce served on toast. Traditionally this recipe contained green bell pepper but you can use green peas instead and an alternative to toast is a use puff pastry shell. Whichever way you serve this dish it is a brilliant comfort food packed full of flavours and here is my current version.

Ingredients serve 4

700 g chicken thighs cut into cubes

½ cup plain flour (80g)

4 tbls canola oil

250 g sliced button mushrooms

100 g diced red capsicum

1 tsp salt

½ tsp freshly ground black pepper

1 cup dry sherry

1 cup chicken stock

1 cup low-fat milk

1 (120g) jar sliced pimientos, rinsed

½ cup sliced spring onions (65g)

Method

Place flour in a medium bowl and coat the chicken. Place half of the oil in a large frying pan over medium heat and fry the chicken in batches until lightly browned approx 3 minutes. Reserve the remaining flour and place the cooked chicken on a plate. Add the rest of the oil to the pan and add mushrooms, bell pepper, salt and pepper. Cook while stirring until the mushrooms are softened and starting to brown approx. 3 minutes. Pour in sherry and bring to the boil. Cook while stirring approx. 3 minutes. Whisk chicken and milk into the reserved flour until smooth. Stir the mixture into the pan and bring to a simmer while stirring. Stir in pimientos and  chicken,  return to a simmer. Reduce heat to maintain a gentle simmer and cook until the vegetables are tender and the chicken is cooked through approx.7 minutes. Stir in scallions and take off the heat. Serve with boiled potatoes.

Note: Sherry is a type of fortified wine originally from southern Spain. You can serve this dish with your favourite starch such as mashed potatoes, rice or pasta.