Creamed Chicken Over Biscuits — Another Grandma Carol Recipe

Another Grandma Carol card this week. The card is dated 1965 in the upper-right corner in pencil, the earliest card in the entire box by three years — this is from the year before Grandma had married my grandfather, when she was twenty-three and living in a rented apartment in Tulsa with a roommate named Phyllis who Mama still mentions occasionally. The title across the top of the card, in Grandma Carol’s tight cursive, reads “Creamed Chicken Over Biscuits — for company.” The card is splattered with old grease stains across the body of the recipe and there’s one yellow stain in the lower-right corner that Mama identified Saturday afternoon as Grandma’s coffee — she’d apparently set the card down on the counter while sliding a coffee mug to make room for the biscuits, and the bottom of the mug had stamped a faint ring on the card. The card has been in active use since 1965. Fifty-four years.

Mama told me, when we were reading the card together at the kitchen table Saturday, that this dish had been the dish Grandma made whenever out-of-town company stayed for dinner unannounced — cousins passing through, the pastor coming by, Daddy bringing a coworker home. The dish was specifically engineered to look impressive on a plate while being assembled from ingredients any sensible Tulsa pantry already had on a Tuesday. That’s the Grandma Carol move — humble in inputs, elegant in execution. The grease stains across the recipe body are the historical evidence of how often she’d had to actually cook it.

The recipe is poached-and-shredded chicken in a from-scratch white sauce with peas and pearl onions, ladled hot over split warm buttermilk biscuits. The component parts are simple. The execution is what makes the dish.

I started by poaching two boneless skinless chicken breasts in seasoned water (water plus a chopped onion, a couple celery stalks, a couple carrot pieces, a few peppercorns, a bay leaf, a tablespoon of salt) for twenty minutes at a bare simmer until the breasts hit one-sixty-five at the thermometer. Cooled the chicken, shredded it with two forks, and reserved two cups of the poaching liquid as the broth base for the sauce.

The white sauce starts with a roux: four tablespoons of butter melted in a heavy saucepan, four tablespoons of flour whisked in and cooked for two full minutes (a properly cooked roux is the difference between a clean white sauce and a flour-tasting one — you have to actually cook the flour out, not just incorporate it), then two cups of the warm reserved poaching liquid added in a slow stream while whisking constantly. The sauce thickens within four minutes once it comes to a low simmer. Reduce heat. Add a half-cup of half-and-half. Add the shredded chicken, a cup of frozen peas, a cup of frozen pearl onions (frozen because pearl-onion-peeling is a punishment Grandma Carol would not have wished on her own enemies, and the frozen are perfectly fine for this dish). Simmer fifteen minutes for everything to come together.

The card’s key move, the one that elevates the dish above the average creamed-chicken-over-biscuits served in church basements across America, is sherry. The card calls specifically for two tablespoons of dry sherry whisked in at the end off the heat. Mama had a bottle of cooking sherry in the back of the pantry from 2002 that she pulled out and said still works because sherry doesn’t go bad — the alcohol stabilizes the flavor over decades, which is why sherry is the only pantry alcohol that doesn’t need to be replaced every two years. Salt, pepper, two teaspoons of fresh thyme leaves, a fine grating of fresh nutmeg.

I made the biscuits from the homecoming recipe I’d perfected in November — cold butter cubed and frozen ten minutes, cultured buttermilk straight from the fridge, six folds, the juice-glass cutter, the freezer rest before baking, four-twenty-five for fifteen. Eight tall biscuits came off the sheet pan. The biscuits get split open while still hot, the bottom half placed in a wide shallow bowl, a generous ladle of the creamed chicken sauce poured over the bottom biscuit so the biscuit absorbs it, the top biscuit placed back on like a sandwich, and an extra spoon of sauce drizzled over the top.

Mama and Cody ate seconds. Mama said her mother would have been proud of the way I’d kept the white sauce smooth without lumps. I told Mama I’d learned roux technique from the homecoming gravy. Grandma is teaching us through the cards. She is still in the kitchen. She is in every Sunday meal we make from her box, and I now understand that she’s going to be in every Sunday meal I cook for the rest of my life because the techniques are now in my hands.

Cook the roux two full minutes. Sherry off-heat. Here’s the build.

Creamed Chicken Over Biscuits

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 30 min | Total Time: 45 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts or thighs
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 1 cup frozen peas and carrots
• 1 small yellow onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• Salt and black pepper, to taste
• 6 large biscuits, homemade or store-bought, baked and warm
• Fresh parsley, chopped, for garnish (optional)

Instructions

1. Poach the chicken. Place chicken in a medium saucepan and cover with chicken broth. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat and cook 18–22 minutes, until cooked through. Remove chicken and shred with two forks. Reserve the broth.
2. Saute aromatics. In a large skillet or Dutch oven over medium heat, melt butter. Add onion and cook 4–5 minutes until softened. Add garlic and cook 1 minute more.
3. Make the roux. Sprinkle flour over the onion and garlic mixture. Stir constantly for 1–2 minutes until the flour is absorbed and lightly golden.
4. Build the sauce. Slowly whisk in 2 cups of the reserved chicken broth, then the milk and heavy cream. Continue whisking over medium heat until the sauce is smooth and thickened, about 6–8 minutes.
5. Add the chicken and vegetables. Stir in the shredded chicken, peas and carrots, thyme, and garlic powder. Season generously with salt and black pepper. Simmer on low 5 minutes to heat through and meld the flavors.
6. Serve. Split warm biscuits open on plates or in shallow bowls. Ladle the creamed chicken generously over the top. Garnish with fresh parsley if desired. Serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 480 | Protein: 34g | Fat: 22g | Carbs: 34g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 720mg