There was nothing actually wrong with coronation quiche, Buckingham Palace’s suggested dish for a coronation lunch. Spinach, broad beans, cheddar: all fine. The trouble was, it wasn’t coronation chicken. When you’re following an actual classic, it’s impossible not to be overshadowed. And coronation chicken is that marvellous thing, a recipe which feels as though it has always been around because it’s so right as a combination of flavours and textures. But like every classic dish, it’s been traduced: take commercial mayonnaise, stir in curry sauce and a bit of mango chutney and a few raisins… and it’s cropping up in all sorts of weird combos now (CC scotch egg, anyone?).
The genuine article was for international guests after Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953 and was the creation of Rosemary Hume, who learned her trade at Le Cordon Bleu cookery school in Paris. It was thought to be based on the jubilee chicken served for George V in 1935, which mixed chicken with mayonnaise and curry. But as you can see below, it’s a much finer and subtler dish, with just a dessertspoon of curry powder (retro for contemporary cooks) for two chickens.
The recipe was first published in The Constance Spry Cookery Book, co-authored by Hume. ‘I doubt,’ it noted, ‘whether many of the 300-odd guests at the coronation luncheon detected this ingredient [curry] in a chicken dish which was distinguished mainly by a delicate and nut-like flavour in the sauce.’ Here it is again – followed by plenty of suggestions for really simple lunch or picnic options for anyone who doesn’t want to cook.
How to make proper coronation chicken
Serves 6-8 as a cold dish
What you need: 2 young roasting chickens (most chicken sold now are young); water and a little wine to cover; carrot; bouquet garni; salt; 3-4 peppercorns; cream of curry sauce (below).
What to do: Poach the chicken with carrot, bouquet, salt and peppercorns, in water and a little wine, enough barely to cover, for about 40 minutes until tender. Allow to cool in the liquid. Joint the birds, remove the bones with care. Prepare the sauce given below. Mix the chicken and the sauce together, arrange on a dish, coat with the extra sauce. (Save the poaching liquid for other uses.)
For convenience in serving on the occasion mentioned the chicken was arranged at one end of an oblong dish and a rice salad was arranged at the other.
Cream of curry sauce
What you need: 1 tablespoon oil; 50g/2oz onion, finely chopped; 1 dessertspoon curry powder; 1 good teaspoon tomato puree; 1 wineglass red wine; ¾ wineglass water; a bay leaf; salt, sugar, a touch of pepper; a slice or two of lemon and a squeeze of lemon juice, possibly more; 1-2 tablespoons apricot puree; 450ml/¾ of a pint mayonnaise; 2-3 tablespoons lightly whipped cream; a little extra whipped cream.
What to do: Heat the oil, add onion, cook gently for 3-4 minutes, add curry powder. Cook again for 1-2 minutes. Add puree, wine, water and bay leaf. Bring to boil, add salt, sugar to taste, pepper and the lemon and lemon juice. Simmer with the pan uncovered for 5-10 minutes. Strain and cool. Add by degrees to the mayonnaise with the apricot puree to taste. Adjust seasoning, adding a little more lemon juice if necessary. Finish with the whipped cream.
There you go. Time consuming (especially given that you should make the mayonnaise yourself), but delicious. No nuts, no raisins, no mango chutney – just a rich sauce sweetened with apricot and lightened with cream, served with a simple rice salad.
If you don’t have time to cook…
What if you don’t fancy cooking, though, but still want to do a biggish coronation lunch or picnic? Keep it simple and familiar. At the original coronation banquet asparagus with sauce mousseline was served. But fresh asparagus, plainly boiled until just tender, and served with melted butter or olive oil and lemon, is fabulous. A few slabs of British or Irish cheese (label if unpasteurised if a guest may be pregnant, and ditto coronation chicken if the mayonnaise is made with raw egg yolks) with baguettes; a half ham; a pork or chicken and ham pie; sausage rolls – all delicious.
If money is no object, your centrepiece could be that fine, failsafe option, beef wellington. Serve with dressed new potatoes and salads – plus, perhaps, a coronation quiche. For dessert, lots of early strawberries and cream, and robust cake for a picnic… battenberg is excellent and there’s lots going for a decent fruitcake. Fit for a king.
To go with all this, you could try a good English cider or an English sparkling wine: Leckford’s from Waitrose is excellent. Aldi does a range called Bowler and Brolly (ha ha) which has a tart and refreshing sparkling pink. Or one of the wines served at the late Queen’s coronation banquet was Pol Roger, which is included in the very fine coronation mixed case from Berry Bros based on that occasion, in a 2015 Blanc de Blancs.
The best bits to buy in
Here are some suggestions for where to pick up your supplies if you don’t have a local provider.
Meat and pies
- London butcher Parson’s Nose offers nationwide next-day delivery and does an excellent beef wellington: 700g for 3-4 people costs £69, or 1.4 kg for 7-8 people is £120. It also does terrific sausage rolls, sprinkled with fennel seeds, with half a dozen for £6.
- Fortnum and Mason does excellent pies. There’s pork, obviously, but for a picnic, chicken and ham is a great option: a substantial 1.34kg version is £36.95. (There’s a smaller version for about a tenner.) It also sells a knockout beef wellington.
- Ham in a piece rather than sliced looks impressive. If you want to boil your own, the Wild Meat Company offers a good free-range gammon (I’d go for unsmoked) at £11 per kilo. Or for a whole ready-cooked ham, Waitrose offers a substantial 2.5kg free-range blossom honey roast ham, typically £62.
Sweet treats
- Cake is an easy option for something sweet to round off the meal. A well-made battenberg is a fine thing, with its chequerboard colour and marzipan wrapping. Daylesford Organic does a lovely version sandwiched with strawberry jam for £18.
- You don’t get much more robust than a fruitcake, which has the further merit that some people like it with cheese. Fortnum and Mason’s Caledonia Coronation Fruit Cake is expensive at £39.95, but it’s substantial and comes, as you’d expect, from Edinburgh, with Scottish honey (very evident in the taste) and whisky and in a nice keepsake tin. For something less dense, a well made Victoria sandwich with jam and cream and possibly strawberries has a royal name, and everyone likes it.
The finishing touch: a coronation cheeseboard
Lots of cheesemongers are offering coronation selections of British cheeses. But if you want to make your own board, and you can afford it, I’d go for these delicious unpasteurised options, with a very good Tunworth or Irish Cashel Blue thrown in for anyone who can’t eat raw cheese.
- Paxton and Whitfield offer an excellent range of small producer UK cheeses, including St James, a delicious, very seasonal ewe’s milk cheese; Yoredale, an excellent Wensleydale made by a small dairy; or for visual contrast, the lovely orange-coloured, blue-veined Sparkenhoe Shropshire Blue.
- The Bath Fine Cheese company also has an excellent range. Try St Jude, a soft, rich little cheese made from the milk of Montbeliarde cows; Golden Cross, a ripened, smooth-textured delicious goat’s milk cheese, coated in ash; or Berkswell, an excellent hard sheep’s milk cheese with a slightly sweet flavour.
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