Apple-Cranberry Chicken Salad

On Fridays, if I've been a fiscally-responsible young professional the rest of the week, I'll bop out to one of the many Union Square eateries and buy my lunch.  Two weeks ago, I went to Pret, a sandwich shop chain imported from the U.K. They have an amazing chicken salad sandwich (see my last post on chicken salad for more on my life-changing conversion to the cold-meat-salad camp), but it's over $3 for half a sandwich.  And since I really wanted to eat several, the only solution was to make it myself at home.

After a pilgrimage to Ditmas Park to secure a roast chicken last Sunday, I wound up with more chicken salad then I could ever possibly consume.  Word to the wise: Using an entire chicken for chicken salad will result in something like a dozen servings.  Suffice it to say that I ate chicken salad for almost every meal last week. It was delicious, but I'd definitely recommend inviting some friends for a picnic or something with this giant recipe.

You'll need:

1 roasted chicken
1 tart apple, like Granny Smith, peeled and sliced thinly
Juice of one-half lemon
3 ribs celery, chopped
1 bag Craisins or other dried cranberries
3 tbsp. mayonnaise

Dissect your chicken and chop roughly.  The yield will look something like this:

Slice the apple very thinly, squeezing the lemon juice over the sliced pieces (this will keep them from turning brown and mushy).  Mix together the chicken, celery, apples, and cranberries in a large bowl.  Then mix in the mayo (just enough to make it all stick together).

Your final product:

You have many options for what to do with this: Eat it plain, eat it with crackers (my preferred lunch mode), make a sandwich:

Go crazy.  And share with friends—I'm not kidding.  So much chicken salad.

Tangy Chicken Salad

For 99% of my life, I have really and truly loathed chicken salad.  My dislike was so great that I actually had to leave the room if somebody was eating it.  So when my friend Rachel made chicken salad for dinner one night, I was slightly horrified.  Fortunately, my sense of politeness forced me to eat some and, boy, was it good!

The problem with most chicken salad recipes, I think, is that they rely on huge globs of mayonnaise to provide taste.  This recipe circumvents that problem by adding giardiniera for taste and color.  Now I am a chicken salad convert.  I made a few slight changes to the recipe for a little added zing.

You'll need:
1 roasted chicken (I got mine at the local Treasure Island for $4.99)
1 16-oz. bottle of giardiniera (mild or hot)
2 tbsp. mayonnaise
1 tbsp. white vinegar
Freshly grated black pepper, to taste

The first thing you'll need to do is disassemble the roasted chicken.  Now, I almost never cook with meat, so this was a new experience for me.  I attempted to remove the skin with a knife, but wound up using my fingers to de-skin and then to strip the meat from the chicken carcass.  I'm sure there are more elegant ways to do this, but using your hands is effective, efficient, and a chance to become intimately acquainted with the structure of a chicken (this could be a plus or minus).

Dispose of the skin and carcass, but be sure to save a little bit if you have a hungry pet:

Yes, I have to hold the chicken for her.  She is very spoiled.

Chop the chicken up coarsely and place in a medium-sized bowl.  Then chop up the giardiniera, but reserve the liquid.  Add the chopped giardiniera and the liquid to the chicken.  Add the mayo, white vinegar, and black pepper.  Mix thoroughly.  You probably won't need to add salt, as the giardiniera liquid is plenty salty.

Then it's ready to eat!  Or if you prefer your chicken salad really cold like me, cover it and put it back in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.  Serve with some crusty bread.

I'm going to guess this will make 4 or 5 servings.  We shall see.

In other news, I'm finally all caught up on LOST.  I think I'm a little bit in love with Michael Emerson, particularly the way he pronounces words that start with "wh."  Yeah.