Coronation chicken with almonds is the textured member of the coronation family, and the almonds are the whole reason it has its own name. A plain coronation chicken filling is soft all the way through: poached chicken bound in a curried, fruited mayonnaise, with no part of it that resists the teeth. This version adds toasted flaked almonds folded through that bind, and the point is the interruption they provide. A spiced, sweetish, uniformly creamy filling on soft bread reads as one long note, and the almonds break it, giving a soft sandwich a thin run of crunch in every bite. Take the almonds out and you have plain coronation chicken, which is the same flavour without the contrast that defines this one.
The craft is keeping that crunch alive against a wet bind. Flaked almonds go soft and slack the moment they sit in mayonnaise, so they are toasted hard first, until the oils come up and the flake browns, and they are folded in as late as possible rather than left to steep, because a damp almond is worse than no almond at all. The chicken is poached and kept moist, then dressed in a mild curried mayonnaise lifted with a little fruit, mango chutney or apricot, so the spice reads as warm rather than hot. The dressing is kept thick enough to hold the chicken and the almonds together in a cohesive layer, because a loose bind sheds its crunch to the bottom of the bread. The bread is soft, plain, and buttered to the edges so the crumb is sealed against a filling that is, by design, slightly wet, and so nothing argues with a sandwich already carrying spice, fruit, and nut. Cut crustless and small for the tea tray, or built thicker as a lunch sandwich, it depends entirely on the almonds going in dry and going in last.
The variations are the rest of the coronation and chicken-mayonnaise shelf, each defined by what is worked through the bind. Plain coronation chicken drops the nut and runs soft throughout; chicken and lemon trades spice for bright acid; chicken and tarragon sets an aniseed herb against the meat; chicken and watercress brings a peppery green instead. Each deserves its own article rather than being crowded in here.