On a busy weeknight, Delia Smith’s chicken and avocado bake turns cold cooked chicken into something rather smart, folded into a sherry and cream sauce and spooned over thin slices of ripe avocado. A little grated Gruyère goes over the top before 20 to 25 minutes in a hot oven, and it feeds 4.
Its proper name is Creamed Chicken with Avocado, and her Complete Cookery Course carries it in 1983 and again in 1992 as a way to use up leftover chicken. The Delia Collection: Chicken (2003) brought it back with Gruyère in place of a mild cheese, and it’s that later version you’ll find below.
There’s one saucepan for the sauce and one dish for the oven, so it’s quick to clear up as well as to make. Her 1992 edition suggests a crisp green salad alongside, and her own mix of chicory, rocket and watercress is the one I’d make.
Under the cheese the sauce is rich but lifted by the sherry and lemon, and the avocado warms through until it’s soft and buttery against the chicken.
Delia Smith’s Creamed Chicken with Avocado
Course: DinnerCuisine: BritishDifficulty: Easy4
servings15
minutes35
minutes620
kcalStrips of ready-cooked chicken in a white sauce enriched with single cream and dry sherry, baked on a bed of avocado under a scattering of cheese.
Ingredients
- For the sauce:
50g (2oz) butter
50g (2oz) plain flour
275ml (10fl oz) milk
150ml (5fl oz) chicken stock
150ml (5fl oz) single cream
1 tablespoon dry sherry
2 to 3 teaspoons lemon juice
salt and freshly milled black pepper
- For the bake:
450g (1lb) cold cooked chicken, cut into small strips
2 ripe avocados
25g (1oz) Gruyère, grated
Directions
- Heat the oven: Set it to 200°C (180°C fan), gas mark 6, and have ready a 20cm (8in) square ovenproof dish about 5cm (2in) deep.
- Roux: Melt the butter in a medium saucepan, stir in the flour until smooth and let it cook for 2 minutes.
- Sauce: Add the milk, stock and cream a little at a time, stirring constantly, and bring it up to a simmer. Let it bubble very gently for 2 to 3 minutes.
- Chicken: Take the pan off the heat and stir in the chicken, the sherry, some salt and pepper and most of the lemon juice, tasting as you go.
- Avocado: Halve and quarter the avocados, take out the stones and peel off the skins, then slice the flesh thinly. Lay the slices over the base of the dish and sprinkle them with the rest of the lemon juice.
- Bake: Spoon the chicken mixture over the avocado, scatter the Gruyère over and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until it bubbles at the edges.
Notes
- Leftover roast chicken or a ready-cooked one from the supermarket both work, just as her headnotes say. Take off the skin and bones before cutting the meat into strips.
- Use cooked chicken within 2 days of cooking it, kept in the fridge, and make sure the bake is piping hot in the middle before serving, 75°C on a probe being my own check.
FAQs
My old copy says half a pint of cream: which is right?
150ml, or 5fl oz. The 1983 Complete Cookery Course prints the cream as ½ pint with 150ml beside it, and the two don’t match, since half a pint is 275ml.
The 1992 revision puts it right at 5fl oz (150ml), and the 2003 book agrees. Doubling the cream would leave the sauce much thinner, so I’d trust the later books here.
Can I use turkey instead of chicken?
Yes, and that’s her own suggestion. The turkey pages of her 1992 Complete Cookery Course say to use turkey leftovers just as you would chicken, and this recipe is one of the two she names.
Use the same 450g of cold turkey, cut into strips, and keep everything else as it is. The other one she names is her creamy chicken curry, if there’s more turkey to use up.
How do I know when the avocados are ripe?
By touch. Delia’s test in her Complete Cookery Course is to hold the avocado in the palm of your hand and press gently, and a ripe one gives slightly.
She also points out that avocados discolour quickly once they’re cut, so slice them only when the sauce is ready. The lemon juice over the slices is there to help them keep their colour.
Which cheese should I use?
Gruyère in the 2003 book, while the two Complete Cookery Course printings simply ask for 25g of a mild cheese. A mild Cheddar or Lancashire suits it too, my own suggestions.
Keep it to a light scattering, since the dish is about the sauce and the avocado. The 25g on the card is enough to brown in patches without hiding them.
Can I get it ready earlier in the day?
Only partly, and this is my own advice. Make the chicken in its sauce a few hours ahead, cool it quickly and chill it, but slice the avocado and put the dish together just before it goes in the oven.
Give it an extra 5 to 10 minutes if the sauce is cold from the fridge, so it’s hot right through. It doesn’t freeze well, as the avocado turns watery and dark.
