COOKING AT HOME: A solid chicken salad
I love chicken salad recipes that are full of flavor, I love the traditional use of mayonnaise and lean-in, heavily, with the dijon mustard. I love the briny flavor of having some type of pickle chopped into it. I also like to have carrot, celery and red onion — because that's what I grew up with. And, I love a bit of herbage at the end to make it "adult".
To start, I can't stress enough how much I love roasting my own chicken for the recipe. I get it, it's a whole lot of extra work — if you don't want to be that committed just go buy rotisserie chicken at your local market (I've definitely done it before and it tastes absolutely great). But I'm a control freak, so I roast the chicken.
I also make the chicken salad a day in advance. You can very well eat it the day of and it'll again, be great, but that extra day really gives all the flavors to marry, wed, f#@!, whatever you want to call it.
Before I start with the recipe and the "how to" I'm going to let you in on the secret to truly flavorful chicken salad. USE A FOOD PROCESSOR to chop all your vegetables. The messy chopping with the blades semi mashing the vegetables gives you the extra flavors seeping out of the torn fibers and cellulose of the vegetables. Yummy goodness.
Here we go.
What you'll need...
1 Whole roasting chicken
2-3 Tablespoons of butter, melted
5-8 Cloves of garlic, minced in the food processor
1/2 Red onion, roughly chopped in the food processor
3 Large carrots or 5 smaller ones, roughly chopped in the food processor
3 Stalks of celery, roughly chopped in the food processor
1/2-1 cup Mayonnaise
2-4 tablespoons Dijon mustard
3 tablespoons drained capers (optional)
Salt and Pepper, to taste
About 2 teaspoons Old Bay seasoning
Fresh herbs, such as dill or parsley for serving
What you'll do...
1. Preheat over to 425 degrees.
2. Prepare the chicken by rinsing, inside and out, then drying it thoroughly. Pour the melted butter onto the chicken and rub it all over. Sprinkle salt and pepper inside the cavity of the chicken. Sprinkle salt and pepper all over the outside of the chicken.
3. Lay the chicken down inside a pan suitable for its size, breast side down. And, roast the chicken for one hour and twenty minutes (1:20). The first 45 minutes cook the chicken with legs facing the back of the oven. Then rotate the chicken sideways for the next fifteen minutes, and rotate to the next side for the last minutes left of cooking.
*If the chicken is browning too much cover it with foil.
4. When the chicken is done roasting. Take it out of the oven and leave it be to cool (about 1 hour).
5. In the meantime, run all the vegetables in the food processor. Make sure to consider how small you want the vegetables pieces to be. I prefer mine to be small diced, not minced. Except the garlic which gets minced in the food processor.
6. When the chicken is cool enough to handle, toss the chicken skin (or, if you're feeling naughty — eat it). Take the chicken apart and cut the chicken into small bites. Once again, I like small dice.
*When the chicken pieces are left too large the chicken salad tends to feel dry in the mouth (this has to do with mayo-to-chicken ratio).
9. Add Old Bay Seasoning. I usually go for about 2 tsp. But, maybe you'll want more. Mix it in thoroughly. Taste. Add more Old Bay if needed.
10. Add the drained capers. Optionally, you can substitute with diced pickles! Anything briny and/or pickled will do. And, if you don't like brine and/or pickles, omit it entirely.
**Let the chicken salad sit in the refrigerator over night to allow flavors to marry.
**To be extra, serve with fresh herbs such as parsley or dill.