Summer has officially arrived as of last week and it's quite brutal here. In weather like this, not much cooking happens in this household. Who wants to heat up the house - even more - by turning the stove on? We tend to grill a steak outside and have a giant bowl of salad to chase it with. Or buy a pack of frozen dumplings to steam and make a couple of different sauces to go with them. But let's be honest, I'm not here to blog about frozen food or even a grilled steak. So, read on as I prepare a dish that is tasty, light, and can be stored in your fridge for up to 3-4 days! You can have this as a sandwich with potato chips or simply serve it at your next summer get together with crackers, chips or sliced baguette. How awesome is that? Make one dish, then shut the kitchen down for a few days in the heat.
I know Americans like to have their egg salad separate from their chicken salad and their potato salad. Not Persians! We don't discriminate... we mix them all in a bowl and even add more ingredients to make it tastier. You guessed right: I'm going to make Persian Chicken Potato Salad. Instead of heavy, greasy mayonnaise, I am using plain yogurt. This will definitely cut back on guilt of eating this dish, not to mention that you will not feel so heavy afterwards. I still use mayonnaise for binding purposes, but the main dressing is yogurt. Didn't I tell you Persians love their plain yogurt?
Persian Chicken Potato Salad
Ingredients:
1 whole chicken cooked (recipe to follow)
1 box frozen peas – blanched and cooled
1 hard-boiled egg peeled and diced
3 large sour pickles in brine
2 baking potatoes cooked, peeled and diced
1 medium carrot cooked, peeled and diced
1 ¼ cup yogurt
¼ cup mayonnaise
¼ cup olive oil
Zest & juice of 3 large lemons
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
In a large bowl, shred the chicken by hand or chop it fine with knife. Make sure all the ingredients are cool before you start peeling and dicing. Peel and dice potatoes, carrots, pickles and egg in small pieces. Add the blanched peas. Make sure they are completely drained and not wet. In a separate bowl, combine the yogurt, mayonnaise, olive oil, lemon zest, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Mix well and then add to the other ingredients. Either using your hands or 2 forks, toss the mixture until it’s well mixed. Cool in the refrigerator and then serve.
Whole cooked chicken
1 – 3lb chicken
1 large onion – peeled and diced
1 medium carrot – peeled and diced
1 celery stalk – peeled and diced
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon sea salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
9 cups of water
Put all the ingredients in a pot and cook for about 2 hours until the chicken is fully cooked and tender. Pull the chicken out and place on a plate until is cool. Meanwhile, you can make a stock out of the remaining liquid. Pull the bay leaf out and blend the remaining. You can keep the stock in your freezer and use when you are making soup next time.
If you really want to eat this the Persian way, make yourself a sandwich on a baguette and top it with plain potato chips. Yes, put the chips in your sandwich! Sounds weird, but oh so good. Be sure to eat it quickly before the chips start getting soggy. No one likes soggy chips ;)
Yummy Sandwich
P.S. If you are having a "lazy" day, feel free to buy an already made roast chicken and go on from there. We won't judge ;)
Note: in Farsi we call this salad "Salad Olivieh."
