Warm Chicken Salad

We were lucky to be enjoying some beautiful days for this time of year and the barometer has been topping the near middle twenties the last short while, well before the cold spell slap us in the face so a salad for lunch has once again been an option – yay!  This quick and easy salad will have you sufficiently satisfied until dinner time.  Quantities will depend on how many you are feeding or how hungry you are.  I don’t keep a lot of salad ingredients on hand this time of year – lettuce, cucumber and fresh herbs are standard though.  You can add anything else you have on hand and a little dollop of mayo (homemade of course) finishes this off perfectly.

Ingredients

Chicken breasts cut into strips
1 egg beaten
Seasoned flour – I cheated and used Hinds Southern Coating seasoning (thanks Aunty Christine)
Baby gem lettuce
Cucumber sliced and quartered
Coriander leaves
Avo sliced
Mayonnaise

Method

1. Dip the chicken in the egg and flour.
2. Fry in a little olive oil and butter, turning to brown both sides.
3. While the chicken is cooking, plate up the salad ingredients.
4. Serve the chicken over the salad greens with a little mayonnaise

Advertisement

Parsley Mayonnaise / Dressing

This must make mayonnaise dressing is based on the mayonnaise recipe I have been using since I read about it on Browniegirl’s blog. Quite honestly, there is no other way to go when making mayonnaise as it doesn’t get easier or quicker than this and the variations are endless.  I was beyond thrilled with the result of this adaption of the recipe that I am quite tempted to use it on most everything.  I slightly changed a couple of the ingredient quantities and added a few others – what resulted is beyond delicious!

Parsley Mayonnaise / Dressing

Ingredients

1 extra large  egg at room temperature
5ml hot English mustard powder
10ml fresh lemon juice
10ml white vinegar
2.5ml salt
2.5ml black pepper
5ml honey
1 garlic clove
Generous handful of flat leaf parsley
200ml grapeseed oil or canola/olive/sunflower or a combination of the oils

Method

1. Place all the ingredients, starting with the egg and ending with the oil in the beaker.
2. Push your blender into the beaker, immersing it completely so that it rests on the bottom of the beaker.
3. Start blending at high speed for 15 seconds without moving the blender from the bottom.
4. Holding the beaker still with one hand slowly raise the blender until it just reaches the top of the contents and then slowly push it down again, blending all the time for 15 seconds.

Homemade Mayonnaise

I posted a recipe about 6 months ago for homemade mayonnaise  which you make using a stick blender and beaker, that I read about on Colleen’s aka Browniegirl’s blog and it is honestly the nicest and quickest (it takes less than a minute to make) recipe ever!  It can be tweaked to suit your taste and it is so incredibly satisfying seeing the contents in the beaker transform into mayo!  I was wanting a more tangy mayonnaise so amended the recipe a little more and was thrilled with the result.

Homemade Mayonnaise

as adapted from Browniegirl

Ingredients

1 extra large  egg at room temperature
5ml prepared hot English mustard
10ml lemon juice
20ml white vinegar
1ml salt
1ml pepper
2.5ml honey
250ml grapeseed oil

Method

1. Place all the ingredients, starting with the egg and ending with the oil in the beaker.
2. Push your blender into the beaker, immersing it completely so that it rests on the bottom of the beaker.
3. Start blending at high speed for 15 seconds without moving the blender from the bottom.
4. Holding the beaker still with one hand slowly raise the blender until it just reaches the top of the contents and then slowly push it down again, blending all the time for 15 to 20 seconds.

To make a richer and thicker mayonnaise, add an additional egg yolk before blending and if you like your mayonnaise slightly thinner, add a bit more oil and if you are wanting a more flavourful mayonnaise, add a chopped clove of garlic and a small handful of chopped parsley or any other herb before adding the oil and blending.

Homemade Mayonnaise

The wonderfully inspirational Colleen who writes the fabulous Browniegirl blog, recently posted a recipe for Homemade Mayonnaise, which is made using a stick blender and beaker.  As I mentioned to Colleen, my stick blender is at home, which is about 4 000 kilometres away from me and how thrilled I was to find a friend on the island who was kind enough to lend me hers.  This mayonnaise is well worth making – it takes less than a minuteand can be tweaked for individual tastes by simply increasing or decreasing some of the ingredients.  I forgot to take a photo so Browniegirl was kind enough to let me use hers.

 

slightly amended from Browniegirl

Ingredients

1 extra large  egg at room temperature
5ml mustard powder
5ml – 10ml lemon juice
5ml – 15ml white vinegar depending on how tangy you like your mayo
2.5ml fine table salt
Pepper to taste
2.5ml honey
250ml oil – made up of 200ml canola or peanut oil and 50ml olive oil (the fruitier and more intense the olive oil, the more it will influence the taste of the mayonnaise)

Method

1. Place all the ingredients, starting with the egg and ending with the oil in the beaker.
2. Push your blender into the beaker, immersing it completely so that it rests on the bottom of the beaker.
3. Start blending at high speed for 15 seconds without moving the blender from the bottom.
4. Holding the beaker still with one hand slowly raise the blender until it just reaches the top of the contents and then slowly push it down again, blending all the time for 15 to 20 seconds.

Further tips from Browniegirl to make a richer and thicker mayonnaise is to add an additional egg yolk before blending and if you like your mayonnaise slightly thinner, add a bit more oil and for those wanting a more flavourful mayonnaise, add a chopped clove of garlic and a small handful of chopped parsley before adding the oil and blending.