Curried chicken salad supper

Curried chicken salad before the topping is broiled.
Note the CorningWare dish, one of two I treasure.

One night recently Christian had promised to make stir-fry but got distracted by car troubles, so I volunteered to make chicken salad. He looked skeptical, no doubt because there are at least 3,452 recipes for chicken salad and he’s always a bit leery of what I will put into a new dish. When he took a second helping that night, he said, “Not bad for a last-minute dinner.”

This is a recipe I’ve had for so long that I have no idea where I got it, but before I present it I want to say a word about chicken. In recent years, rotisserie chicken has become the thing—quick, easy, tasty, never dry, low fat (if you discard the skin). I disliked boning it until Jordan convinced me that if you bone it right when you get it home from the store, while it’s still warm, it is much easier than if you refrigerate it first. Still, I try to sweet-talk her into doing it when I can. But I have used traditional or classic rotisserie chicken (I cannot tell the difference between the two, but I avoid all those exotic flavors such as sweet mesquite or smoked garlic pepper or Cajun) for everything—sandwiches, salads, soups, casseroles. But no more. I am a reformed person.

First of all, chicken is an inexpensive protein—but when you buy a rotisserie chicken, it gets a lot more expensive. And there’s that boning and, afterward, a carcass to deal with. Jordan insists I put it in the freezer until trash day so it won’t smell up my kitchen, but it takes up valuable freezer space. The real reason, however, that I’m giving it up is that rotisserie chickens are injected with a solution high in sodium, sugar, and processed ingredients like carrageenan (an additive that thickens and preserves). So it really is nonsensical that producers tell us the chicken is organic and then preserve it for the rotisseries.  

There’s another factor: years ago I would roast chicken by putting it in a pan, adding a bit of water, salt and pepper for the meat, and sometimes I’d lay an onion slice or two on it. Or sometimes I poured a cup of chicken broth over it before I covered the pan. Somehow I switched to poaching and it never was right—the meat was always tough. You’re never too old to learn something new—I was poaching at a hard boil. What you want is to simmer the chicken in water flavored as you like, perhaps a bay leaf, a bit of onion, some salt and peppercorns. But never let it quite come to a boil. Takes about forty-five minutes to poach a full breast, but it makes all the difference in the world. So now I’ll be poaching boneless, skinless breasts to cook with. Many recipes call for three cups of diced chicken—one full breast (both sides) gives you about that.

So here’s my recipe.

Curried chicken salad with crisp topping

3 c. cooked chicken, diced

1 c. celery, diced

½ c. thinly sliced scallions

Juice from half a lemon, more if needed

2 tsp. curry powder

¾ c. mayo

½ c. sour cream

Salt and pepper

2 c. finely crushed potato chips

1 c. coarsely shredded sharp cheddar

Chop and dice chicken, celery, and scallions, and stir together in a large bowl. Mix lemon juice, curry powder, mayo, sour cream, and salt and pepper separately and stir into chopped mixture. Chill at least an hour in the fridge, longer if possible. If you have any old-fashioned CorningWare, put the salad in that because you are going to want to take it straight from fridge to broiler. Other ways to do this: use a metal pan like roaster or even a pie plate, or when you remove the salad from the fridge, switch it to a baking dish that is not cold. If you take Pyrex from fridge to oven, the dish is liable to crack. Also use a flat pan if possible—you want as much surface as you can get because the topping is what gives this the extra zing.

Separately, mix the chips and cheese thoroughly.

When ready to serve, pull salad from fridge and put in roasting dish you’ve chosen. Top evenly with chip/cheese mixture. Heat the broiler and run the dish under it. Do not walk away! Do not try to do something else! Stand right there and watch, because those chips will go from nicely browned to burnt faster than you blink. Serve immediately.

We had some left over the night I fixed it, so I served it to Jean the next day. Hoping to crisp up the topping, I ran it in the oven for a very few minutes. When she took a bite, she said, “The salad part didn’t get warm.”

“It’s not supposed to,” I replied.

And about that stir-fry, Christian fixed it the next night, and it was so good. But you have to get him to tell you what he did.