Chicken a la King - Ball Blue Book?

[GinnyB]

I found a recipe for Chicken a la King that supposedly came from the Ball Blue Book - but not the edition I just bought a week ago. It uses flour for thickening, which I thought was a no-no, though their recipe Mustard Pickles (page 48, 2006 copyright)does use flour.

 

Has anyone tried this recipe? Is it safe? There is a little butter in it, but no dairy.

 

Thanks for answering.

 

Ginny

[Virginia]

My family has canned this recipe for years with great success. However, since coming here and reading all the stuff out now about flour in canning, I have decided not to do it anymore. Family is kinda sad.

 

I still have the Blue Book that it is in.

[GinnyB]

Funny that no less an authority than Ball would decide to scrap a recipe. I am guessing that the flour in the Mustard Pickles is okay due to the acid of the vinegar...but I thought that's what the pressure canner was for...

Thanks, Virginia.

 

Ginny

[PoGo]

GinnyB, perhaps you could remove the butter and flour, adding them later when opened for use?

 

I use my chicken soup for an "a la King" type product. I bring the soup to a boil, thicken and add cream then serve over biscuits.

[GinnyB]

Thanks, PoGo and Virginia. I would like to can a few protein products that are already seasoned and ready for use - just open and heat kind of things that would be good in an emergency, maybe even good without heating if fuel became an issue. It appears that the newest guidelines for canning make it difficult to find this kind of recipe. I am new to canning and welcome the experience and help of others more versed than I.

 

Ginny

[Virginia]

I can chicken in broth all the time, and generally we heat it with noodles and such. However, on occasion we eat it just from the jar on sandwiches. I am very careful to can according to the newer charts and cannot recommend that others eat without heating, but we have never had a problem. I don't know of anyone that ever had a problem with home canned foods. My grandmother, mother and aunt all canned for years and I have done it since a girl with one or the other of them, so at 63 I have a lot of years under my belt. Still better safe than sorry. Quite a few recalls of commercially processed stuff lately.

 

My family particularly likes a taco soup I can now, always canning at the longest processing time for the ground beef in the soup, and corn, which is also a long canning time.

[Darlene]

Ginny, without seeing the recipe that Ball used to publish as safe, I'd hafta agree with PoGo and can it, minus the flour.

 

Flour interferes with the heat and pressure adequately infiltrating the jars during processing. As with alot of things, sometimes they discover facts they didn't know 10, 20 years ago that take items, that once were thought of as safe for canning, and removing from the approved 'safe list'.

 

There ARE limits with home canning, and as frustrating as it is, it's just the way it is. Like I've said in the past, everyone is responsible for the choices they make, but I personally just can't find peace serving my children home canned products that have known risks to them. That's just me, but it bears mentioning again. I'm not saying you're doing this, I'm just stating for the public viewership, the reasons why I draw hard lines with some things in home canning.

 

I'm really excited for you though! It spurs me on to can more things when someone like you comes in and is hitting it hard...it makes me want to get back into the swing of things and hit it hard again too. I hae a freezer full of chicken I need to thaw out and home can. My sons love to take that, shred it and make all kinds of mexican dishes with it later.

 

Keep the questions coming!

[PoGo]

I don't know if this is the recipe in question, but it's one in my collection of Blue Books.

 

This is from the Ball Blue Book

Volume 1, Published by Alltrista Corp. copyright 1995, 1997, 1998, Page 59

 

Chicken a la King

True chicken a la King is made of all white meat, pure cream and sherry wine.

The recipe given here is for a product suitable for canning or freezing.

 

2 (3 1/2 to 4 pounds) stewing chickens, cut into pieces

2 stalks celery, quartered

1 onion, quartered

1 carrot, quartered

4 peppercorns

2 whole allspice

1 bay leaf

2 teaspoons salt

1/4 cup chicken fat or butter

1/2 cup flour

5 cups chicken broth

1/2 cup chopped celery (about 1 stalk)

1/4 cup chopped pimento

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

Salt and pepper to taste

 

Combine chicken, celery stalks, onion, carrot, peppercorns, allspice, bay leaf, and salt in a large sauce pot.

Cover with water. Bring to a boil; reduce heat; simmer 2 to 3 hours or until chicken is tender.

Remove and discard vegetables. Allow chicken to cool in broth. Remove chicken. Skim off excess fat; strain broth.

Remove skin and bones from meat. Cut meat into 1-inch pieces.

 

Melt fat or butter; add flour, stirring until smooth. Gradually add chicken broth and cook until thickened, stirring constantly.

Add chicken and remaining ingredients. Simmer 5 minutes. Pack hot meat and sauce into hot jars, leaving 1-inch head space.

Remove air bubbles. Adjust two-piece caps.

Process pints 1 hour and 5 minutes, quarts 1 hour and 15 minutes, at 10 pounds pressure in steam-pressure canner.

Yield: about 4 pints or 2 quarts.

 

To serve: Brown mushrooms in butter, add mushrooms to Chicken a la King, if desired. Heat until hot throughout.

[Darlene]

The processing times on that are even way off...

 

Nonononononononononononono.

[GinnyB]

Thinking more about the Ball Chicken a la King recipe, I suppose one could cook the chicken with the vegetables and seasonings,making a flavorful broth, and then just processing chicken and broth. To use, I'd make a roux with the flour and butter, add the canned broth (and a little sherry!)and some milk or cream. The canned chicken would be added last, with perhaps some pimiento and canned mushrooms. Not as easy as just heating a totally prepared jar (like chili, soup, or taco meat)but not unreasonable either. I was intriguied by this recipe because I have a wonderful freezer recipe for chicken a la king that really is heat and eat. I'm trying to lessen my dependence on the freezer.

 

Thanks for all the responses.

 

Ginny

[Violet]

Sorry, the chicken ala king is not safe. No butter or flour or any other thickener in low acid foods. (Not even Clear Jel in low acid foods.) The newest version of the Ball Blue Book doesn't have that recipe. Nowdays even the high acid pickle recipe has been changed to use Clear Jel, not flour. That is how it can be thickened, the vinegar in it keeps it safe. However, not just any pickled food recipe is safe to thicken, only a couple of them that have been tested.

 

 

 

[westbrook]

so if you remove the flour and butter it is no longer Chicken ala King!

 

what you have is Chicken ala Queen! or maybe Chicken ala Princess!!! ROFL!

[Spider]

Virginia, would you post your recipe for taco soup? That sounds wonderful.

[Amishway Homesteaders]

anybody out there found a safe way to make this usingleftover turkey?

[Violet]

You would can it like soup, and then thicken when you open the jars. Just use broth, turkey, seasonings, and your vegetables and process per soup guidelines.

[PatriciaY]

I just watched a video of a woman who grew up eating the Ball chicken A La king canning recipe and is still alive.  She also still cans it AND other things that have dairy in them. 

 

[Mother]

 PatriciaY. Welcome to Mrs Survival.  Nice to have you join in.  
 

This thread is 9 years old but it’s always nice to bump the older one up and revisit them.  I’m sure there are many of us on here that have in the past or still can using older recipes.  Perhaps some of them will chime in here. I go far enough back in canning that I have even water bathed low acid vegetables for hours to preserve them.   I wouldn’t do that now unless there was a desperate situation. 
 

We don’t all of us necessarily believe everything the government recommends but we do try to encourage safety here. We suggest everyone do their own research in order to take advantage of more recent findings on both old and new ways of preserving foods.  I’m especially interested in other old fashioned methods like fermentation and dehydration. Not exactly the way to preserve Chicken A La King though .  
 

I’m looking forward to more of your posts. 

[Midnightmom]

RoseRed Homestead is a very good source for canning safely. Her most on point video to this discussion is called Russian Roulette Canning.

 

 

If you are interested in fermentation and other older ways to preserve food, you should check out Mary's Nest.

Quote

I teach Traditional Cooking Skills for making "Nutrient Dense" Foods including Bone Broths, Cultured Dairy, Ferments, Sourdough Starter (my foolproof starter!) and Sourdough Bread, How to Soak and Sprout Grains, and Make Homemade Sprouted Flour. All from Scratch!

 

Plus I also teach Home Canning Basics. I'll show you how to be a Modern Pioneer in the Kitchen...no matter where you live! I’m Mary and I’m a former New Yorker now living the simple life with my sweet husband in the Texas Hill Country. And I've been a Modern Pioneer in the Kitchen cooking Traditional Foods for over 20 years.

 

So whether your kitchen is in a city apartment, in a house in the suburbs, or in a farmhouse in the country…come join me as we preserve traditional cooking skills and find joy living as Modern Pioneers in the Kitchen!

 

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[Mother]

Very good vid MM.  I, too, taught traditional food skills at one time in my life.  We didn’t have You Tube then though.  Come to think of it, we didn’t have much for internet.