A&A’s Chicken Salad
It is a popular refrain that, when eating something unfamiliar, you should exclaim loudly and in the expectation of uproarious laughter that it “really tastes like chicken!”. This kind of zinger seems to bring the house down every time. It is perhaps up there with the one about “there once being a man from Nantucket…” as amongst the finest comedy lines ever written.
Apart from the fact it’s not funny and often factually incorrect. Frog tastes like frog not like chicken. Lemons don’t taste like lime just because they are both citrus. And milk doesn’t taste like water because they are both liquidy. The whole “it tastes like chicken” is a mystery to me and means people must not know what chicken really tastes like.
You know what really tastes like chicken? Well, chicken obviously. And we should know, because we eat a bloody lot of it. The yellow ones from Oli’s roasted Thai style in the oven, pre cooked ones from Sainsbury shredded by hand for lunches and the bones knawed at over the sink (which I know you’d rather I didn’t put in print) and, when we are craving vegetables, crispy garlic chicken atop a mound of salad.
I made the crispy garlic salad version recently after you came back from a work trip, and eating it on our balcony with you as the sun sets, with the gentle hum of the park below is just about as good as life gets, I think.
SHOPPING LIST
Crispy Garlic Chicken
Chicken thighs
Garlic
Salad Stuff (here are some suggestions)
Salad leaves
Cherry tomatoes
Sweet potato
Bell peppers x 2
Avocado
Snap peas
Dressing
Lemon (Halved and juiced)
Olive Oil (Quite a lot)
Mustard (one teaspoon)
Vinegar (one teaspoon)
Good quality salt
Pepper
Squeeze of honey (optional)
HOW TO MAKE
1. For the chicken, de-bone the thighs and remove excess skin around the sides, but keep a patch of skin on the top. Place it in a cold frying pan skin side down with no oil. Put on a medium heat and season the top side with salt (no pepper, which will burn). Leave the chicken untouched - it’s really important not to move it - until the skin is completely golden and rendered. This will take about 10 minutes. Then flip the chicken, add some sliced garlic, and finish cooking. The chicken should be mostly cooked through so this part should only take 3 minutes of so. Remove the garlic if it burns. Once cooked, remove from the heat and leave to rest for a few minutes.
2. For the salad we think it’s nice to have a combination of hot and cold elements. For the cold, we usually add sliced cherry tomatoes and snap peas and avocado to the salad leaves. The hot elements are usually roasted bell peppers and sweet potato, added hot to the salad just before serving.
3. For the dressing combine the dressing ingredients and mix well. Season generously and add to the salad just before serving.
4. Top the salad with the sliced garlic chicken and, if you can’t get enough poultry, a soft boiled egg too.