Chinese Chicken Salad

Amarante

Tue, Nov 03 2015, 4:20 pm

This is a nice version of the classic. The Napa cabbage elevates it a bit above the iceberg lettuce version Very Happy

You can use rotisserie chicken but I think poached breasts are best.

Chinese Chicken Salad

Source: Peter Meehan - Lucky Peach Presents 101 Easy Asian Recipes

Makes 4 servings

Ginger Dressing
¼ C chopped fresh ginger
¼ C rice vinegar
2 T honey
2 T sugar
1 T sesame oil
1 T soy sauce
¼ t Chinese five-spice powder
+ white pepper

Salad

8 C thinly sliced napa cabbage
2 C thinly sliced red cabbage
2 C pea shoots
1 C chopped scallions
1 C thinly sliced snow peas
2 C shredded cooked chicken
½ C cilantro leaves
1 C drained canned mandarin oranges
½ C crisp chow mein noodles
¼ C toasted slivered almonds
2 T toasted sesame seeds

1 Make the dressing: Combine the ginger, vinegar, honey, sugar, sesame oil, soy sauce, five-spice, and a few grinds of white pepper in a blender and process until smooth.

2 Make the salad: Toss the cabbages, shoots, scallions, snow peas, chicken, cilantro, and dressing together in a large bowl. Divide among plates and top with the oranges, noodles, almonds, and sesame seeds.

Much like the Mall Chicken, this is about as Asian as David Carradine. But if you were young in the 1990s and ever visited Wendy’s or the Cheesecake Factory—or Spago for that matter—or watched Martin Yan on PBS, you encountered this bizarre sweet-sour hodgepodge of no particular tradition at all. For much of our staff, it’s a sentimental favorite. We present our best take on it here; serve with marathon rewatchings of Clarissa Explains It All, My So-Called Life, or whatever other cultural effluvia accompanied the rise of this salad.