This is a variation of a holiday chicken salad recipe I ran into on Allrecipes.com, located here. Ever since the mercury scare I've shied away from tuna, and I never did care much for the soggy mayo-heavy, unimaginative peasant fare I've always associated with that meat. Why go to the sea to get your chickens, anyway, when there's plenty to be found on land?
Preparation: about 30 mins.
Cooking: about 20 mins.
Servings: 8 — 12
Est. cost: about $9
Today's Specimen
Ingredients
- 4 cups chicken breast, cooked then cubed then shredded.
- ½ cup mayonnaise
- ¾ cup plain lowfat yogurt
- 1 cup dried sweetened cranberries
- ½ cup crushed walnuts
- 1 cup bell peper, diced small
- ½ cup red onion, diced small
- ⅛ tsp. celery seed
- ⅛ tsp. marjoram
- ⅛ tsp. thyme
- ⅛ tsp. lemon zest
- ¼ tsp. white pepper
- 1 tsp. salt
Directions
- Combine the mayonnaise and yogurt in a small bowl or container and belnd in the lemon zest and spices, and set aside in a refigerator.
- Steam about four chicken breast halves for about twenty munites, then trim the fat off them and cube with meat scissors or a knife. Transfer — making sure you have exactly 4 cups or just slightly over, but no more than 4¼ cups of the cubed chicken — to a large mixing bowl (min. 2½ qt. capacity) and shred with a masher. Set aside.
- Prep the vegetable ingredients and combine with the cranberries and crushed walnuts in a medium bowl or container. Set aside.
- Fold the mayonnaise-yogurt mixture into the shredded chicken until all is disributed uniformly, then fold the vegetables and cranberries and crushed walnuts into the chicken until all is distributed uniformly.
- Cover and refrigerate at least four hours — preferably overnight — before serving.
Next Time in the Lab
My goal in concocting this variation fo a familiar theme was to avoid what I consider to be a cloying sweetness to the traditional recipes, make it more suitable as a workhorse substitute for that damned poisonous tuna. I may have leapt over the saddle, though, so some minor adjustments are called for.
- Omit the celery seed.
- Substitute freshly crushed black pepper for the white pepper.
- Increase the lemon zest to ¼ teaspoon.
- Increase the thyme to ¼ teaspoon.
