This dish made an elegant ladies’ luncheon or a not-too-hearty summer supper. The recipe later came to be made with canned cream of chicken, mushroom, or celery soup.
3 tablespoons butter
¼ cup unsifted all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
⅛ teaspoon ground black pepper
2 cups milk
2 cups cooked boneless chicken pieces
½ cup frozen green peas
3 tablespoons chopped pimiento
4 baked puff pastry patty shells
Melt butter in a heavy saucepan over low heat. Stir in flour, salt, and pepper until smooth. Very gradually stir in milk; cook over low heat, stirring constantly until sauce has thickened.
Fold chicken, peas, and pimiento into sauce and cook over low heat until everything is heated through, 5 to 10 minutes.
To serve, place patty shells on 4 dinner plates. Spoon chicken mixture into and around patty shells; serve immediately.
4 Servings
“In 1944, those groups which had welcomed, even urged, women to take jobs began to roll up the welcome mat. … While public spokesmen of all sorts proposed a variety of means to ensure full employment, they all assumed that a partial solution was the retirement of millions of women to domesticity.”—The Homefront and Beyond, 1982