Salad of Japanese griddled thighs with edamame, sugar snaps and miso dressing
Quite addictive. You can get fresh podded edamame beans in supermarkets now as well as frozen. No need to cook the sugar snaps, by the way; they are gorgeously crunchy and sweet in their raw state. I like the contrast here: hot chicken, cool salad.
The wakame brings a whiff of the seaside, which I love with miso. It reminds me of the Irish seaweed – dulse – that I grew up with. It’s entirely optional. I use it dry, crumbled, rather than soaking it.
Coronation chicken is the sort of British dish that makes the French laugh (it is, after all, a mixture of meat and fruit, something they find rather alien), but it is one of my favourite things. Usually it looks rather unappetizing, though: you get a pile of mayo-smothered chicken served alongside shreds of iceberg lettuce, all of it scattered with some sad-looking pale almond flakes. I wanted to take Coronation chicken to new heights, to make it into a respectable salad. This is what I came up with. It makes a lovely summer lunch.
1kg2lb 4oz skinless boneless chicken breasts, or mini fillets
2tbspolive oilplus 2 tbsp more to dress the salad
2just-ripe mangoes
2ripe avocados
juice of 2 limes
75g2¾oz watercress or baby spinach leaves
1red chillihalved, deseeded and shredded
15g½oz toasted flaked almonds
FOR THE DRESSING
3tspcurry powderor to taste
½tspground ginger
350g12oz mayonnaise
125g4½oz Greek yogurt
7tbspmango chutneychopped if it is chunky
a little milk
chilli sauceto taste (optional)
leavesfrom 7 sprigs of minttorn
Instructies
Season the chicken and heat the 2 tbsp of oil in a large frying or sauté pan.
Sauté it until golden all over, then throw in about 50ml (2fl oz) of water, cover and let the chicken cook.
How long this takes depends on whether you are using breasts or mini fillets; cut one through the middle to check, it should have no trace of pink.
Leave to cool completely.
Using a fine bladed, really sharp knife, cut into neat slices.
Season all over.
Gently mix all the ingredients for the dressing together except the chilli sauce and mint.
It should be about the thickness of double cream (though a bit chunky as it has bits of chutney in it).
Taste for seasoning and heat and add chilli sauce (if using).
Stir in the mint.
Peel the mangoes and cut the ‘cheeks’ off each side (the bits lying right next to the stones), cutting really close to the stone so you remove the plumpest bit of the mango you can.
Cut them into neat slices, about the thickness of a pound coin.
(You can remove the rest of the flesh, of course, but it is difficult to cut into neat slices.
Best remove it and keep it for something else.
)
Halve the avocados, remove the stones and cut the flesh into slices.
Carefully peel the skin from each slice.
Spoon some lime juice over them to keep them from discolouring.
Season.
Gently toss the salad leaves with the sliced mango and avocado, the chilli, the remaining lime juice and 2 tbsp of olive oil, salt and pepper (this just gives the salad a nice gloss).
Put the salad on a big platter or a broad shallow bowl and add the chicken.
Drizzle some of the dressing over and scatter the almonds on top.
Serve the rest of the dressing in a jug.
I really like a bowlful of wild and brown rice with this, either warm, or dressed with vinaigrette and left to get to room temperature.
Smoky chicken salad with roast peppers, shiitake and sugar snap peas
The marinating is very important here – it’s what gives the chicken its smoky taste – so do it overnight if you can. You can add to or change the vegetables: julienne of carrots, beansprouts and sliced radishes can replace the peppers and mushrooms if you want something lighter.
150g5½oz mixed salad leaves (I like baby spinach and mizuna)
smallbunch of corianderoptional
3tspsesame seeds
Instructies
Mix all the ingredients for the marinade together.
Put the chicken in a dish and pour the marinade over.
Cover with cling film and put in the fridge for a couple of hours, but ideally 24 hours; this really will improve the flavour.
Bring it to room temperature before cooking.
When ready to cook, preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4.
Halve and deseed the peppers and put them into a small roasting tin.
Brush with a little of the regular oil and roast them in the hot oven for about 35 minutes, or until tender and blistered.
(I have to admit I wouldn’t put the oven on just for these, but would cook other things at the same time, such as other roast vegetables for another meal.
) Once cooked, cut into slices lengthways.
If it looks as though the skin is about to peel off you can remove it.
Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t.
Preheat the grill.
Lift the chicken out of the marinade and put it on a foil-covered grill rack (the foil just really helps with the washing up).
Cook under the hot grill for 12 minutes, six on each side, brushing every so often with the marinade.
Cook the sugar snaps in boiling water for one minute, then drain and run cold water over them.
Heat the 1 tbsp of regular oil in a frying pan and quickly sauté the shiitake mushrooms until they are golden.
Reduce the marinade by boiling until it is syrupy.
To make the dressing, mix 3 tbsp of the reduced marinade with the 3 tbsp of virgin oil, a good squeeze of lime juice and a little honey (both to taste).
Slice the chicken – on the diagonal – and toss with the leaves, the warm dressing, strips of pepper, sugar snaps, shiitake and coriander (if using).
Warm salad of griddled chicken, freekeh, preserved lemon, sour cherries and mint
Even though it’s quite summery, you can serve this in the spring and autumn as well. If you’re making it in summer you can add some pitted fresh cherries, too. Make sure that the freekeh is well-seasoned and moist: as the grains sit they suck up dressing, so you may need to make some more dressing if it has been sitting for a while.
1home-made preserved lemonor 2 small commercially preserved lemons
200g7oz freekeh
1tbspolive oil
4tbspextra virgin olive oil
2tsphoney
3tspwhite balsamic vinegar
juice of ½ lemon
good pinch of ground cinnamon
leavesfrom 10 sprigs of minttorn
10g¼oz chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves
Instructies
If you are using breasts and they’re particularly thick, cut them in half horizontally.
Marinate the chicken if you have time (it really helps).
Mix the garlic, seasoning, lemon juice and olive oil in a dish and lay the chicken in it.
Turn to coat, cover with cling film and put in the fridge to marinate for a couple of hours.
Bring it to room temperature before cooking.
Put the cherries in a small saucepan and add enough water to just cover.
Bring to the boil, then remove from the heat and leave to plump up for 30 minutes.
Remove the flesh from the preserved lemon and discard, then cut the rind into slivers.
Put the freekeh into a saucepan and cover with water, adding the regular olive oil and seasoning well.
Bring to the boil.
Reduce the heat and simmer for 25 minutes, or until just tender.
Drain.
In a small bowl, mix the virgin oil, honey, white balsamic, lemon juice, cinnamon and plenty of salt and pepper.
Mix this dressing into the drained freekeh.
Drain the cherries and fork them into the grains with the preserved lemon and most of the herbs.
Heat a griddle pan until it is really hot and put the chicken on it (leave the marinade behind).
Let it sizzle and splatter and leave it for two minutes.
Turn the chicken over and let it cook for another two minutes.
Reduce the heat and continue to cook until the chicken is done all the way through, another four or five minutes (it depends whether you are cooking breasts or thighs, breasts cook more quickly).
Taste the freekeh: you might want more lemon juice.
The mixture should be moist and well seasoned.
Divide between four plates – or put on a platter or a broad shallow bowl – and serve the chicken on top.
Scatter the reserved herbs over.
I usually offer tzatziki and a green salad on the side.
Smoked chicken, lentil and sautéed jerusalem artichoke salad
This is a bit of a dinner party number – at least that’s the way I’ve often used it – but it also makes a good lunch dish. You can find smoked chicken breasts in larger supermarkets and delicatessens.
100g3½oz baby salad leaves (I like baby spinach and lamb’s lettuce)
Instructies
Make the vinaigrette by simply whisking everything together with a fork.
Take the chicken out of the fridge so that it’s not fridge-cold when you add it to the salad.
Cook the Jerusalem artichokes in boiling salted water, to which you’ve added a good squeeze of lemon juice (this stops the artichokes discolouring).
Once they’re just tender, but still have a little bite (after 10–15 minutes), drain and slice them into rounds about 5mm (¼in) thick.
Set aside.
Heat 1 tbsp of the regular oil in a saucepan and gently sauté the onion, celery and carrot until soft but not coloured.
Add the lentils and turn them over in the oil.
Pour in 500ml (18fl oz) of water, season, bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, until the lentils are just tender.
This could take 20–35 minutes depending on the age of the lentils, so keep an eye on them; they can turn to mush very quickly.
Drain them.
Stir in 2 tbsp of the vinaigrette and the parsley while they are still warm.
Heat the cream with the garlic, season with salt and a good squeeze of lemon juice and stir this into the warm lentils, too.
Heat the remaining 2 tbsp of regular oil in a small pan and sauté the artichoke slices until coloured and cooked through.
(Be careful not to cook the artichokes so much that they start to fall apart.
) Cut the chicken into neat slices.
Toss the salad leaves and the artichoke slices with some of the dressing – don’t use it all – and divide between six plates, arranging them in the centre.
Spoon the lentils around this and arrange the smoked chicken on top.
Drizzle each serving with a little more dressing (you don’t have to use it all) and serve immediately, with any remaining dressing on the side.
Palm sugar-griddled chicken with radishes, cucumber and vermicelli rice noodles
Oh, I love this dish. The cold noodles, the crisp vegetables, the sweet chicken, the heat of the dressing. Try to find watermelon radish, an Asian radish with a stunning pink interior and a great texture. You can use multicoloured radishes (if you can get hold of them) instead, or just regular radishes are fine.
Remove the coarse outer layers from the lemon grass and trim the top and base.
Chop the rest – the softer bit of the lemon grass – as finely as you can.
Mix together the soy sauce, rice wine, ginger, garlic, palm sugar, finely chopped coriander stalks, half the lime juice and the lemon grass.
Put the chicken in a dish and pour over the marinade, turning to coat.
Cover with cling film and put in the fridge for about four hours.
Bring it to room temperature before cooking.
To make the dressing, put the rice into a hot frying pan and cook for two or three minutes, shaking regularly, until pale golden brown.
Transfer to a large mortar or spice grinder and set aside to cool.
Once cool, pulverize.
Put the chilli, palm sugar and garlic into a mortar and crush until you almost have a paste.
Pound in the root ginger, then gradually add the fish sauce and lime juice and stir in 1 tbsp of the toasted rice.
Put the rice vermicelli into just-boiled water and leave it for four minutes, then drain really well, run cold water through them and leave to drain and cool.
If you have found watermelon radish, peel off the skin then, using a small sharp knife, shave off strips of it in furls.
You should end up with something that looks like pink pencil shavings.
Or just finely slice regular radishes and the cucumber.
Toss the cold noodles with the cucumber, radish, the rest of the lime juice, the oil and most of the mint.
Heat a griddle pan.
Shaking the excess marinade off the chicken, cook each piece on the hot griddle on both sides, starting on a medium-high heat to get a good colour, then reducing the heat to cook the chicken through.
Divide the salad between four shallow bowls or one large one.
Put the chicken on top and scatter with the rest of the mint.
Spoon on a little dressing and offer the rest in a bowl.
Warm salad of chipotle-griddled chicken, chorizo and quinoa with lime crème fraîche
A wonderful big, sprawling dish, good for a lunch as everything can be served at room temperature. You can extend it by adding black beans to the grains. Offer crumbled cheese – feta or Wensleydale – on the side.
Don’t be put off by the length of the recipe: the dish is made up of a few components, but each is easy.
With a very sharp knife, make little slits in the chicken thighs on both sides.
Rub with the olive oil, chipotle paste and juice of 1 lime.
Cover and leave in the fridge overnight, or for a couple of hours.
Bring it to room temperature before cooking.
Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas mark 6.
Halve the tomatoes and put them in a single layer in a small roasting tin.
Mix the olive oil, balsamic, cumin and harissa and pour it over.
Turn the tomatoes over to coat.
Leave cut side up.
Sprinkle with the sugar and season.
Roast in the oven for 40 minutes, or until caramelized in patches and slightly shrunken.
Toast the quinoa in a dry frying pan for a couple of minutes, then put it into a saucepan and add enough water to cover.
Bring to the boil then reduce the heat a little, cover and cook for 15 minutes.
Cut the avocados in half and remove the stones.
Cut into slices lengthways, then carefully peel the skin off each slice.
Season and squeeze over the juice of one of the limes.
Heat a griddle pan until it is really hot and put the chicken on it.
Let it sizzle for two minutes.
Turn and cook for another two minutes.
Reduce the heat and cook until done all the way through, another four or five minutes.
Slice and keep warm (just put them back on the griddle and cover).
Cut the chorizo into rounds and sauté in the ½ tbsp of olive oil in a pan for about four minutes, until golden brown and cooked through.
Fork the quinoa, season it assertively and put it into a large broad, flat serving dish.
Gently mix in the chorizo, chicken, baby spinach, spring onions, coriander, avocado, the juice of the other two limes, the white balsamic and the extra virgin olive oil.
Dot the roast tomatoes in among everything else.
For the lime crème fraiche, mix the ingredients with the juice of ½ lime.
A chicken version of the classic Italian veal dish vitello tonnato. You can poach a whole chicken for this instead of breasts, but poaching breasts means the dish is neat and easy to serve. You absolutely must get good canned tuna for it (such as Ortiz). It’s a great, easy summer dish and not that well known.
The best chicken salads come from the East – Bali, Vietnam, Thailand, Burma – and I can’t get enough of them: they just grab your taste buds and don’t let go.
You can now buy fresh coconut in small packets (so no more buying a whole beast and taking a hammer to it). I know it’s a pain to open a whole can of coconut cream to use just a few tablespoons for the dressing, but there are plenty of other dishes in the book that call for coconut cream, so there should be no shortage of ways to use it up.
Put the chicken into a dish with the lime zest and juice, the crushed garlic and some pepper.
Cover and put in the fridge while you make the rest of the dish.
Bring it to room temperature before cooking.
Shave the cucumber skin so that you end up with it in stripes (it doesn’t have to be neat).
Halve the cucumber lengthways and scoop out the seeds with a teaspoon (discard them).
Slice the cucumber as thick as a 50p coin and put into a serving bowl.
Steam or boil the green beans until only just tender (they should be slightly less cooked than you would serve them as a side dish).
Rinse in cold water to stop them cooking further.
Carefully pat dry with a tea towel.
Add to the bowl with the beansprouts, herbs, coconut, chillies and lime leaves.
Peel the shallots, halve them and cut them into moon-shaped wedges.
Heat half the oil in a frying pan and cook until crispy and golden.
Scoop out on to kitchen paper with a slotted spoon.
Add the sliced garlic to the pan and cook until pale gold.
Be careful not to burn it; that happens very quickly.
Scoop that out, too, on to kitchen paper with a slotted spoon.
Add the shallots and garlic to the bowl.
Make the dressing by mixing the caster sugar with the lime juice and fish sauce.
Stir vigorously to help the sugar dissolve.
Add the oil and coconut cream.
Heat a griddle pan until really hot.
Take the chicken out of its marinade and brush on both sides with the remaining oil.
Season and cook the chicken on the griddle, starting on a high heat to get a good colour on both sides, then reducing the heat and cooking until they are done.
Slice into strips.
Toss the chicken into the salad bowl with the dressing and serve.
Salad of chicken, cherries and watercress with creamy tarragon dressing
A gloriously summery, elegant salad. You can make this with cold, leftover roast chicken if you prefer – it does mean it’s quicker to put together – but it’s worth poaching breasts for it, too. Tear the cherries when you pit them rather than cutting them, as the raw edges look better.
