Summer weather brings cravings for chicken salad

All this summer weather has been making me think of chicken salad. It never even occurs to me in winter. A nice old garden-variety chicken salad made with celery, onion, boiled eggs and mayonnaise is a lovely thing, all piled up on a bed of lettuce and trimmed out with parsley. Or how about chicken salad sandwiches to take on a picnic or just to eat out on the back porch? The problem with this classic one is some of us are trying not to eat much mayo these days, and are cutting back on eggs. Some of us just like variety.

To that end here is a way to make chicken salad that just oozes with flavor and virtue. This set of instructions additionally has a high tinkerability quotient which means some of you can just take suggestions and ideas away with you.

You can start with leftover cooked chicken or get thighs or split breasts, even boneless ones. You know by now that if you leave bones in when you cook it, it improves the flavor. I think a chicken salad ought to have a little of dark and light meat, but that is up to you. If you start with uncooked meat, the trick is to poach it until it is cooked but not overdone because it toughens up if it boils hard.

The poaching water can be chicken broth if you have some. If not, start with water and add salt, a bay leaf, a few peppercorns or a few grinds of a pepper mill. If you feel ambitious, chuck in a quartered onion, a carrot, a stalk of celery, a garlic clove or two. When the chicken is cooked you will have a nice broth to stash in the fridge or freezer to cook rice in, or to use in a cream of something-or-other soup.

The rest of the ingredients, capers, olives, tomatoes, green beans, I think are somewhat optional. I have frozen green beans from last year’s garden that I will use – flat Italian ones, until we have fresh green ones but asparagus would be nice, and so would snap peas. This is a good chance to use cherry tomatoes. I am not crazy about tomatoes unless they are really fresh, right from the garden, and even then, I prefer them cooked, but I know a lot of other people really love them, even out of season.

Most of the stores these days have those salad bar setups with all the different kinds of olives in them – black pitted and unpitted, big green, small and wrinkled black ones in oil, green with garlic, etc. I like getting olives from this selection because I am very suspicious about canned black olives. How do they get to be that even, intense black? and what do they do with the flavor while they are at it? Someone told me once that manufacturers take green olives, bleach them, then dye them black. Yuk. I don’t know whether that is true but with honest-to-goodness ripe black olives who needs the canned ones. I didn’t even think I liked black olives until I had the real McCoy – Kalamatas were my first experience, and I thought, “where have you been all my life?”

If you find you have olives with pits in them, here is what to do: Put the olive on a cutting board then smack it with the flat side of a chef’s knife. That breaks the olive and leaves the pit easy to pick out.

Capers are a terrific addition to this salad, too, a little salty and exotic. Sometimes you can find really big jars of them, and then they are not so expensive. That way you can use them a little more lavishly.

Italian parsley, the flat kind, has the best flavor. Save the curly for garnish. If all the ground I had to grow in was 2 square feet, I’d stick flat parsley in it. It is so useful.

As for the dressing, the olive oil and lemon juice are really nice, and Jamie thought a little more lemon juice would be even better. But I think a commercial Italian dressing, even a balsamic vinegar one, or vinaigrette would be very good. Jamie and I really like the dressings made by that movie star, in fact, I suspect my better half prefers it to my homemade ones.

This salad can be served cool – room temperature – or even warm with a little Parmesan sprinkled on it.

Mediterranean Chicken Salad

Serves 3-4.

2 whole cooked chicken breasts and a thigh

Fistful of green beans

2 dozen black olives, pitted and chopped

At least 2 tablespoons of capers

A handful of cherry tomatoes (optional)

1/3 cup olive oil

Juice of one lemon

Dried oregano

Finely minced parsley

Salt and pepper

Washed and torn lettuce or baby greens

Pull the meat from the bones, and cut into bite sized pieces. Put into a bowl. Snap the beans and blanch them in hot water, or cook until tender – your choice. Add them to the chicken. Sprinkle on capers to taste, add the olives, slice the tomatoes in half, if you wish, and add them. In a small jar, shake the olive oil and lemon juice together, and drizzle over the salad to taste. Sprinkle on some dry oregano, the parsley, and add salt and pepper to taste. Let rest at room temperature. Lay the salad on the lettuce and serve.