What is coronation chicken? The history behind the dish.

By Melissa Clark, The New York Times

No matter how you feel about King Charles III and Queen Camilla’s recently revealed signature quiche, it seems unlikely to eclipse the most famous coronation dish of all — coronation chicken.

Created for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, the posh, delicately flavored chicken has, like Britain itself, changed a bit since. What was originally an aristocratic paragon of classic French technique has been democratized into a weeknight-easy chicken salad. Though enormously popular in Britain as a sandwich filling and baked-potato topper, this ocher-tinted, raisin-studded dish would be unrecognizable to any of the 350 dignitaries who partook of its regal ancestor.

The original, developed at the Cordon Bleu culinary school in London, was called “poulet Reine Elizabeth.” A dish of cold poached chicken in a rose-hued sauce made from red wine, mayonnaise, whipped cream, apricot purée and a faint whi...