African Style Chicken Salad
5 Aug
We were on a mission with this recipe. A mission to make ourselves like arugula and…chicken breasts. We’ve both always thought arugula tasted like dirt and chicken breasts were more often than not– dry, rubbery and overcooked excuses for protein. Anyway…we were quite successful with this, I must say. Lots of flavor, but still light and relatively inexpensive. Why is this African you ask? Well, the dressing is a riff on Harissa, which is a Moroccan paste made of peppers, cumin, coriander, etc. It’s often found in tube form at the grocery store or of course, on Amazon.com
African Style Chicken Salad
Ingredients
- 1 lb. chicken breasts, sliced in 1/2 width wise and pounded thin with a meat mallet
- about 3 oz. arugula*
- 1/3 c oil cured olives, pitted**
- 3 oranges supremed (keep the zest for the dressing)***
Dressing Ingredients
- 1/3 c avocado or olive oil
- 1/3 c orange juice
- 1/3 c roasted red peppers
- zest of 2 oranges
- 1 t chili garlic sauce
- 1 t each cumin, coriander, paprika
- s&p
Method
Heat some fat in a saute pan on the high side of medium-high. These chicken breasts cook wickedly fast because they’re so thin. To get a good sear, cook the chicken until it’s about 3/4s of the way there on one side. You’ll see the sides of the chicken turn from pink to white. Flip it over and sear for a quick minute–very, very short amount of time here.
For the dressing:
In a food processor or blender, blend all the ingredients until emulsified.
To serve:
In a bowl, mix the dressing with the arugula, olives and orange supremes. Place the chicken on a plate and top with the salad. Why not put the chicken on top of the salad, you ask? Because you have to knife-and-fork this sucker. Why not have the chicken lying on a hard surface, like a plate, instead of on top of a bunch of lettuce? It’s much easier to gobble up this way, I promise.
*If you can’t find/don’t like arugula, ANY lettuce will work. Romaine, Mixed Greens, Spinach….
**Oil cured olives are just cured in oil (duh) as opposed to brined. Same as above–if you can’t find/don’t like oil cured olives, Kalamata (Greek) olives will substitute well
***You do not have to do this, but it sure is purrrrty and it’s a technique that looks really fancy, but is actually quite simple. This is how you supreme an orange:
Please notice the knife in Ming’s hand–it’s ceramic. I’ve heard they’re super sharp but break easily. Anybody got one of these? Also, Ming made a Paleo recipe, so write it down and make it too!
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