Creamed Chicken Delmonte (1920)
Reader ratingsPoached chicken in a thick chicken-stock sauce with pimentos, celery, eggs and lemon, served on toast with asparagus tips: Creamed Chicken Delmonte, the second menu in Mrs. Wilson’s New Year’s Midnight Repast of 1920.
- Recipe makes
- 4 servings on toast
- Prep
- Cook
- Total
The chicken simmers for about an hour and is cooled in its stock; both can be done the day before and kept cold. The sauce then takes about 20 minutes.
Creamed chicken on toast with asparagus tips.
The story behind the recipe
Wilson’s New Year’s “Midnight Repast” gives two menus, set one above the other and joined by “or.” The first has the Newburg and the sandwiches. The second is creamed chicken Delmonte, celery salad, home-made pickles, olives, rolls and butter, with punch and tea or coffee. Her recipe for the chicken runs over two pages, 486 and 487.
What is Delmonte about it?
The book does not say, and gives no word on where the dish came from. What the recipe describes is a creamed chicken in a thick, egg-enriched sauce, close kin to the “a la King” dishes whose sauce she measures on page 171: a large stewing chicken of six and a half to seven pounds is simmered with two onions, a clove, a carrot, celery and a bundle of herbs and cooled in its stock. The meat is cut into one-inch pieces. A quart of the stock thickened with three-quarters of a cup of flour, boiled for five minutes, becomes the sauce, and into it go onions, pimentos, a quart of parboiled celery, three beaten eggs, salt, paprika, the chicken and the juice of two small lemons.
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How is it served?
“On toast,” with “three tips of canned asparagus” laid on each serving, heated in their own juice, and parsley sprinkled over. She gives no count, and the amounts are large (a bird of six and a half to seven pounds), so we cut them to about a quarter so that one chicken serves four.
Making it today
A whole chicken of about three pounds replaces her large stewing hen, and the stock and sauce are cut to match. A stewing hen takes far longer than a roaster to turn tender, so the time here is ours. The eggs go in off the heat and the sauce comes back to 165°F (74°C), where the book says only “heat until very hot.” The other menu, with the oysters à la Newburg and the pimento sandwiches, is in the article on the last New Year’s Eve before Prohibition.
Select a large stewing chicken about six and one-half to seven pounds. Singe and draw, then wash. ...
Recipe makes: 4 servings on toast
Ingredients
For 4 servings on toast. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for 4 servings on toast.
Chicken and stock
- Chicken, whole3 lb
- Small onion, for the stock1
- Clove1
- Carrot, diced1/2
- Celery, for the stock, cut in small pieces1 stalk
- Bundle of thyme, parsley and a bay leaf1
- Water6 cupsAuthor measures: 1.4 l.
Sauce
- Of the chicken stock1 cupAuthor measures: 240 ml.
- All-purpose flour3 tbsp
- Small onion, minced, for the sauce1/2
- Jarred pimentos, minced2 oz
- Celery, for the sauce, cut in 1-inch pieces1 cup
- Cooked chicken meat, from the poached chicken10 oz
- Egg, well beaten1
- Salt3/4 tsp
- Sweet paprika1/2 tsp
- Juice of 1 small lemon (about 2 tbsp)
To serve
- White bread, toasted4 slices
- Canned asparagus tips12
- Finely chopped parsley1 tbsp
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 3 lb chicken, whole
- 1 small onion, for the stock
- 1 whole clove
- ½ carrot, diced
- 1 stalk celery, for the stock, cut in small pieces
- 1 bundle of thyme, parsley and a bay leaf
- 6 cups (1.4 L) water
- 1 cup (240 ml) of the chicken stock
- 3 tbsp all-purpose flour
- ½ small onion, minced, for the sauce
- 2 oz jarred pimentos, minced
- 1 cup celery, for the sauce, cut in 1-inch pieces
- 10 oz cooked chicken meat, from the poached chicken
- 1 egg, well beaten
- ¾ tsp salt
- ½ tsp sweet paprika
- Juice of 1 small lemon (about 2 tbsp)
- 4 slices white bread, toasted
- 12 canned asparagus tips
- 1 tbsp finely chopped parsley
Equipment
- Large pot with a lid
Medium saucepan
Whisk
Instant-read thermometer- Toaster or broiler
- Small saucepan for the asparagus
Instructions
Put the chicken in a large pot with the onion for the stock, the clove, the carrot, the celery for the stock, the herb bundle and the water. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer gently for about an hour, until the thigh reads 175°F (80°C) and the meat is tender. Let the chicken cool in the stock for no more than 30 minutes, then lift it out, skin it, take the meat off the bones and cut it in pieces about an inch square. Strain the stock. Refrigerate the meat and the stock within 2 hours, and keep the rest of the stock for soup.
Parboil the celery for the sauce in boiling water for 3 minutes and drain.
Whisk the flour into the stock for the sauce in a saucepan until smooth and add the onion for the sauce. Bring to a boil, stirring, and cook for 5 minutes. Take the pan off the heat and stir in the pimentos and the celery, then the measured chicken meat; keep the rest of the chicken for another dish.
Beat the egg with the lemon juice, salt and paprika. Stir in a spoonful of the hot sauce, then stir the mixture back into the pan. Return to low heat and stir until the sauce reads 165°F (74°C) on a thermometer. Do not let it boil hard.
Heat the asparagus tips in their own liquid. Spoon the chicken over the toast, lay three asparagus tips across each serving and sprinkle with the parsley.
Nutrition
420calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- 4 servings on toast
- Servings
- 4
Estimated per serving from USDA FoodData Central values for chicken, chicken stock, flour, egg, celery, asparagus and white bread.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
Use about 1 cup of stock and 3 tbsp flour for every 10 oz of chicken meat; the egg and lemon scale with the sauce.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.
Wilson’s amounts are for a party and she gives no yield. We quartered them, replaced the stewing hen with a whole chicken (with a shorter simmer), simmered the onion in the sauce, tempered the egg and added the 165°F (74°C) check. Keep leftovers cold and eat them within two days. Contains chicken, egg, wheat (gluten) and celery.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
After Creamed Chicken Delmonte, in Mary A. Wilson, Mrs. Wilson’s Cook Book (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1920), on the Midnight Repast menu
See the original pages (scan at Internet Archive) (opens in a new tab)
Recipe details
- Course
- Main course
- Dish family
- Meat & Poultry
- Region
- American
- Era
- Interwar
- Source decade
- 1920s
- Event
- New Year’s Eve, 1919
- Main ingredient
- Poultry & game birds
- Difficulty
- Intermediate
- Occasion
- New Year’s Eve