
Coronation Chicken
Coronation Chicken
But first……..some Royal Wedding loving.
Let’s be honest this royal wedding malarkey is getting a bit much. I can’t watch any breakfast telly anymore for fear of kicking the flat screen into a million pieces…..The will he won’t he saga is doing my swede in……..It’s like Eastenders. I can’t imagine all of this drama is going down well at the Palace. It’s like Fergie all over again. Spitting Image should do a wedding special. Imagine…..
But in reality it is like most weddings I went to in my twenties and thirties they were always a hot bed of drama and fallings out. Blinkin loved it. Weddings seem to bring out emotion like no other occasion. Literally every one I went to ended up in some scene from a soap opera and more often than not fighting among lots of paralytic people whilst others were sick in the bushes. The lethal combination of free wine from noon was and is a recipe for disaster. We had an outrageously good time. I’d be horrified now if I was in the middle of all that.
I can remember getting hideously drunk at my brother in law’s wedding by 12.30 pm before we had even sat down and then spilling a bottle of red wine all over the lady sitting next to me in a white trouser suit………Holy Sh.t…… Things only got progressively worse…..Then tw.tted I must have felt jealous and proceeded to tell everyone (and I mean everyone) right in their faces for hours that I was going to get married next year ( I wasn’t even engaged )before having a huge public row with my boyfriend and trying to walk five miles home in bare feet…. What a T.AT! Can you see it??? Cringe City.
My Wedding
My own first wedding evening do was another boozy night resulting in much drama, laughter and people drunk driving around the parking field, leaning out of the windows shouting obscenities at each other………The pinnacle of the evening however was a good old fashioned flash. A close friend of mine in an effort to be seamless was wearing no knickers and as the night got later and she got more inebriated she thought it would be a fabulous idea to climb up on the chairs to strut her stuff……..Needless to say she went ar.e over t.t in front of everyone with legs akimbo. I could hear all the screaming from the toilet miles away. We have NEVER let her forget it….well you wouldn’t would you……. Brilliant. Pass me the confetti and Hog Roast.
Nowadays if I was a witness to all that I would be tutting and calling for a taxi. Harry and Meghan’s wedding has made me have a little reminisce about the fantastic weddings gone by. Sad but I had almost forgotten them. Nowadays my main concern would be getting to the buffet first…….
Keep Calm and Coronation Chicken Recipe
This Coronation Chicken recipe is my ode to the royal wedding. Alone as a Chicken Salad or Coronation Chicken Sandwich recipe it is classically English and done properly seriously delicious. There are usually a couple of problems with it however. The first is that it’s recipes can be terribly long winded and the second is that the quick version is usually simply mayo mixed with curry powder. I am not a fan of raw spices and just don’t like their slightly harsh flavour. So my recipe has taken the best of both types of recipes and come up with this little beauty of a hybrid.
I have been so blown away by my Coronation Chicken fetish that I will be making some again just as soon as I can get my hands on another chicken. I am mad for the stuff……. Perhaps they will have it in some nice vol au vents at THE wedding. I know I so would….

Sorry couldn’t resist!
My recipe involves poaching a whole chicken in a snug saucepan it’s a simple thing to do and well worth the effort. The chicken itself is then lightly flavoured from the veg and bay leaf and oh so moist. Chicken needs to be moist to be magnificent. After that we return to the land of ‘Bob’s your Uncle’ as it is simply a matter of mixing the sauce ingredients together before sousing the chicken in it’s magical sauce. Unroll your picnic blanket and get out your bunting……

Coronation Chicken
This Coronation Chicken is absolutely delicious. It has a real depth of flavour that hides it's simplicity. Warmly spiced, fruity but creamy it really earns it's classic reputation. Studded with apricots and raisins it is perfect as a salad or filling for sandwiches or suchlike. Quintessentially British Summertime.
Ingredients
Roast Chicken
- 1.5 kg chicken best you can afford
- 10 whole black peppercorns
- 1 large bay leaf
- 1 large carrot chopped roughly
- 1 large onion chopped roughly
- 1 cinnamon stick
Coronation Sauce
- 1 1/2 tbsps mild curry powder
- 150 mls mayonnaise
- 150 mls plain yoghurt
- 2 tsps worcestershire sauce
- 30 grams sultanas
- 50 grams ready to eat dried apricots chopped finely
- 50 grams flaked almonds
- 5 tbsps mango chutney
- 1 small bunch coriander chopped
Instructions
Put the chicken and ingredients into a snug fitting saucepan and cover the chicken in water. Mine didn't cover it all as the chicken was too high so I turned it over breast side down.
Bring to a simmer then cover and cook gently in the oven for about an hour and a half. I had my oven on at 140 C. I also used a meat thermometer to make sure it was 75 C.
Take it out and set aside to cool enough to be able to strip all the meat from the carcass.
Meanwhile put the curry powder in a saucepan and toast for a minute or so until you can smell the spices in the air. Keep a close eye on the pan as they can burn easily. I keep moving them about with a wooden spoon.
Tip them into a bowl and mix all the sauce ingredients apart from the coriander together.
Add the chicken to the sauce and mix well through. Refrigerate for a couple of hours before adding the coriander when ready to eat.
Apply to Face in a Big Hat.
Here is another recipe perfect for a Summer picnic – Potato Salad

Potato salad
PIN ME FOR LATER

Coronation Chicken
I have linked this post with Cook, Bog, Share over at Recipes Made Easy – Fiesta Friday.
I’m surprised it wasn’t my brother that exposed himself at your first wedding. I’m pretty sure he did on the stag do ? and talking of my brother & weddings, I spilt Guinness down my bridesmaids dress at his wedding , BEFORE THE PHOTOS ??
He did at the stag do!!!!!What a laugh!!!!Guinness Helen ???It was Helen that I spilt the wine over though ???
Still one of my fav sandwich fillings. Thanks for linking the recipe to #CookBlogShare and for making me laugh with your latest tale.
And mine Jacqui.Blinkin gorgeous!Thankyou for hosting too x
Jenny, you NEVER disappoint! LOL I do love your wedding stories LOL Coronation chicken is such a delight and I love it! Haven’t had it for a while though and your recipe looks fab so definitely one to make as soon as I get my hands on some chicken 🙂 ! xx
Thanks Jo!!!I had forgotten how blooming gorgeous it is too.I ate the whole lot myself in the end!!!!Terrible ???
I love chciken sandwiches and these look so gorgeous! Thanks for sharing, Jenny. Happy Fiesta Friday!
This sounds delicious. And I loved hearing all of your wedding tales. Yes, I too remember the endless procession of weddings that seemed to happen almost ever weekend in my late 20s and early 30s. I’m always rather grateful we (hubby and I) went first – we were only 24. It meant we had nothing to live up to, nothing we felt we ‘should’ do and as a result we did all sorts of things our own way – things like not having an evening reception, and not inviting plus 1s we didn’t know (which sounds crazy now, but at… Read more »
Thanks Eb so much.Your wedding sounds perfect!!!Very maverick!
We haven’t been to one in ages either.My aging bod could only handle the toast!!x
Absolutely lovely memories of all the weddings gone by!!! Brilliantly written as always xxx
Thanks gorgeous.Weren’t they just Trev?I’d started to forget.Didn’t we have a riot??!!Back in the day ??xxx
I haven’t come across a recipe like this before, looks delicious! Great wedding day memories too.
Strangely, I went to very few weddings before I hit my thirties…. I put it down to being from a ‘feminist’ cohort who considered independence as the pinnacle of maturity (ha ha) and that marriage was for crazy people who had got ‘lost’ somewhere along the path of women’s enlightenment. Yeah…. right!
But weddings or not, I have always been a huge fan of Coronation Chicken…… Just pass me some GF bread and I’ll be on my way! x
Feminist cohort sounds serious stuff!!Weddings should be championed I think just for the vol au vents alone ??