Chinese Chicken Salad
Asian first course
Preparation time: 1 hour
Serves: 6-8 people
Ingredients:
Salad:
2-3 Freshly grilled skinless chicken breasts
2-3 Cups Finely shredded iceberg lettuce
1-2 Cups Finely shredded Napa cabbage
1-2 Bundles deep fried mai fun rice stick noodles
1-2 Chopped green onions
1-2 Peeled carrots
1 Red bell pepper
1 Pint grape or cherry tomatoes
½ Red or green Jalapeño pepper
¼ Cup Chopped cilantro leaves
Toasted sesame seeds for garnish
1 Quart of peanut oil for frying the rice sticks
Optional:
Char siu Chinese barbecued pork
Shoyu ninniku pickled garlic
Hard boiled quail eggs
Peeled prawns
Garlic chives
Blackberries
Pea sprouts
Baby corn
Pineapple
Dressing:
½-¾ Cup Kikkoman soy sauce
¼ Cup pineapple juice
¼ Cup Xao xing Chinese rice wine
¼ Mirin sweet Japanese rice wine vinegar
2-3 Cloves crushed garlic
1-2 Minced shallots
2-3 Tbs Golden brown sugar
1-2 Tbs Roasted sesame oil
1-2 Tbs Thai peanut sauce (or creamy peanut butter)
1-2 Tsp Finely grated ginger root
1-2 Tsp lemon juice
1-2 Tsp white sugar (to taste)
1 Tsp Chinese five spice powder
½ Red or green Jalapeño pepper
Dash of roasted sesame chili oil
Poultry dry rub:
2-4 Tsp Freshly ground colored peppercorns*
1-2 Tsp Onion powder
1 Tsp garlic powder
½-1 Tbs Corn starch
½ Tbs Salt
½ Tsp Sugar
- Red, white, green and black peppercorns
Ground semi-coarse in a spice grinder
Preparation:
Start barbecue or preheat broiler for the chicken. Rub the boneless and skinless chicken breasts with a few teaspoons of peanut oil and then coat them with the dry rub mixture. Allow them to rest for five minutes before grilling. Cook off the chicken using the second or third rack of the barbecue or turn off one side of the grill and reduce the other side to low for the duration. Cook the chicken over the unlit side. The chicken will take 15-25 minutes to cook through. Turn once during the cooking period. Avoid disturbing the peppercorn crust if possible. If necessary, finish the chicken over the lit side of the barbecue to obtain some grill marks.
Heat the peanut oil in a large deep pot. The noodles will need to be fried last, but the oil takes some time to heat up. Keep it at a medium-low setting until the final stages. In another small saucepan, heat some water with the quail eggs in it. Turn them off once the water boils and wait five minutes before draining and submerging under cold water.
Make the dressing by combining all of the liquid ingredients. In a small bowl, gradually mix small amounts of liquid with the Thai peanut sauce or creamy peanut butter until it is very runny and combines easily with the dressing. Dissolve the brown sugar and stir in the five spice powder. Remove all seeds and membranes and then mince the Jalapeño pepper finely. Mince the shallot finely and add with the crushed garlic. Reduce the amount of garlic if you are making the dressing well ahead of time. Peel and grate the ginger then add to the dressing and stir well. Check for salt and sugar balance. If the dressing is too sweet, add more soy sauce. The liquid should have a nice dusky salty-sweet and sour taste to it. If it is still very sharp in flavor from the xao xing rice wine or mirin rice wine vinegar, add more brown sugar. If the dressing is merely too salty, adjust it with some granulated sugar.
Wash all of the vegetables. Shred the iceberg lettuce and Napa cabbage finely. Peel the carrots and Julienne them into very fine slivers. Julienne the Jalapeño pepper as well and finely cut the green onions. Separate the cilantro leaves from their stems and run a chef’s blade over them a few times to mince them. Cut open the red bell pepper and remove all membranes and seeds. Sliver the bell pepper finely into one inch pieces. Use whole grape tomatoes or cut cherry tomatoes in half. The grape tomatoes will be perfectly matched in size with the hard-boiled quail eggs and shoyu ninniku pickled garlic.
Optional ingredients:
Peel the hard-boiled quail eggs under cold running water. Wash and mince the garlic chives finely. Open and drain the baby corn and pineapple. Reserve the pineapple liquid for the dressing. Rinse off the pea sprouts and blackberries just before adding to the finished salads. Use the shoyu ninniku whole.
Frying the rice sticks:
Once all of the other ingredients have been prepared, increase the oil temperature to high. Periodically drop in small fragments of the noodles to test for the right temperature. The noodles should puff up and flash cook in mere seconds when the oil is hot enough. Be ready with tongs or a slotted spoon to remove the puffed noodles from the oil. Add only a handful at a time to the hot oil. They will swell tremendously and literally try to climb right out of the pot. Drain the fried noodles on paper towels and finish cooking all of them off. You will want at least about four cups of the fried noodles. Once it has cooled, strain the oil through a sieve and save it in the refrigerator for other uses.
Assembling the salads:
Remove the chicken breasts from the grill and allow them to rest for at least three to five minutes before slicing them up. Mix all of the chopped green vegetables together with the pea sprouts. Ensure that they are relatively dry after being rinsed off. Any excess moisture will tend to make the fried noodles get sodden rather quickly. Just before composing the salads, coarsely crumble the fried noodles and toss them with the greens. Make a bed of the noodles and greens in the bottom of each bowl. Decorate the top side with the shoyu ninniku, hard-boiled quail eggs, baby corn, blackberries, pineapple chunks and peeled prawns. Hang prawns over the bowl’s edge for a festive appearance.
Cut the grilled chicken and room temperature char siu barbecued pork into thin slices. Top each salad with a fan of these two meats. Scatter grape or halved cherry tomatoes around the salad’s edge. Sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds and liberally spoon the dressing on top. Serve immediately.
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