Curried Chicken Salad

All the tasty ingredients!

This chicken salad is the bomb. I was inspired by a curried chicken salad I had years ago in Chicago at a restaurant/non-profit called First Slice. They have a small restaurant that also serves food to homeless people and others who are experiencing hard times.

The chicken salad there was delicious, but it took me this long to get around to recreating it. The addition of yogurt helps keep the salad from being to sweet and also harkens back to cooked curries, where yogurt is a frequent ingredient. This is really a simple salad to through together and is great to take on picnics, make sandwiches with, or just to snack on plain. I made it a few weeks ago when my partner's folks were in town - we went to the everglades and picnicked - and they really loved it.

Enjoy!

Curried Chicken Salad
3 cooked Chicken Breasts chopped
4 Carrots grated
3 Celery Sticks chopped
4-5 teaspoons Curry Powder
1/2 - 3/4 cup dried Cranberries
3/4 cup Greek Yogurt
3/4 cup Miracle Whip
Salt
Pepper

Sprinkle raw chicken breasts with salt and pepper and bake at 350 for about 30 minutes until chicken is done. Once chicken is done, chill the chicken breasts and then chop them up.

Ingredients assembled

Mix together the chopped up chicken with the carrots, celery, curry powder, cranberries, yogurt, and miracle whip.

Finished product on a sandwich

Store the chicken salad in the fridge and spread on your sandwiches at will. Makes about 8-10 sandwiches.

Corn Cakes

I made these to go with slow cooked pork roast and they turned out great; they are a hybrid of a few different recipes. I used yogurt instead of just buttermilk because I had some greek yogurt left over than needed using up but you could probably use all buttermilk if you wanted or even sour cream. Also, cheese would probably taste really good in these too.

These cakes are addictive and I kept nibbling on them as they were frying!

Corn Cakes
1/2 cup Yogurt
1/2 cup Buttermilk
1/3 cup Oil
2 Eggs
1 cup Cornmeal
1/3 cup Flour
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
1 teaspoon Salt
2 teaspoons Sugar
2-3 Chili Peppers chopped
1/2 Onion chopped
1 cup frozen Corn
Butter for frying
In a large sized bowl mix together the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar and then add in the buttermilk, yogurt, oil and eggs. Mix just until everything is moistened then put in the corn, onions, and peppers.

Everything in the bowl

Heat a large skillet to about medium high heat and put a little butter in the pan (I just take a stick of butter and rub it around on the skillet until there is a light coating of butter).

Mixed up batter

Using a large serving spoon scoop out a spoonful of the batter and put it in the pan. (my pan fits two scoops) fry for a little over a minute and then flip over and fry for about 45 seconds.

Both sides of the corn cakes should be light brown. Continue until all of the batter is used up. Makes about 12.

Yogurt Barbecued Turkey Breast

Giant turkey breast

I've always made and used tomato based barbeque sauces but I've read about ones that have different bases and seen chefs make different types on cooking shows. Probably on the food network but I have no idea whose show because I don't have cable and just watch it whenever I am visiting someone who does. Anyway, I thought a yogurt base would be good, tangy, and also tenderizing. This turkey breast came out amazing but the spices weren't super strong, so after I had deboned and shredded the breast I added in some more seasoning.

spices mixed together

Feel free to make your own modifications. I threw this together on a whim after reading about paprika in a cookbook while I was browsing Barns & Noble.

The finished product!

Yogurt Barbecued Turkey Breast
3 1/2 teaspoons Paprika
2 1/2 teaspoons Chili Powder
1 1/2 teaspoons Onion Powder
1 1/2 teaspoons Garlic Powder
1/2 teaspoon Cayenne
1 teaspoon Salt
1 teaspoon fresh ground Black Pepper
2 teaspoons Brown Sugar
1/3 cup Greek Yogurt (I wouldn't recommend using regular yogurt for this unless you strain it because it will be too watery)
6 lb Turkey Breast
Mix together spices with yogurt and rub all over the turkey breast. Make sure to separate the skin on the turkey breast and rub the spices under it otherwise you will just be flavoring the skin which doesn't do much good. Bake in a large pot or roasting pan, covered, for about 3 hours or until a meat thermometer inserted into the turkey breast reads about 170 degrees. Let the turkey cool down (don't wait until it is is really cold though because that makes it harder to debone) and then debone and shred the meat and mix it back in this it's own juices. Use it for whatever recipes you want. I made a casserole, and a pasta salad with mine. The turkey also freezes well so you can save some for future use.

Kashmiri Chicken

This chicken is simply amazing. The pungent and tangy blend of spices just makes my mouth water when I am making this. Also, I love recipes that use cinnamon sticks, not just because cinnamon is tasty, but also because I feel cool cooking with a whole cinnamon stick - it seems like something only a fancy chef would do. Anyhow, the spice blend in this recipe is excellent, probably because it is from the Complete Indian Cooking cookbook.

I think this would be great paired with a spinach salad with dried cranberries in it. I just ate it plain but I definitely think it would have benefited from something fresh along side.

Also, I used greek yogurt in this because I love how thick and tart it is but you could use regular yogurt just as well.

Kashmiri Chicken
3 Onions finely sliced
10 Peppercorns
10 Cardamoms
1 Cinnamon Stick
1 2-in long Piece Ginger finely chopped
1 1/2 teaspoons minced Garlic
2 teaspoons Chili Powder
2-3 teaspoons Paprika
3 lbs. Chicken Breasts cut into large pieces
1 1/2 cups Unsweetened Plain Greek Yogurt
Salt
Oil

Heat oil in frying pan until hot (on medium heat) and put in onions. Fry onions, with peppercorns, cardamoms, salt, and cinnamon stick, until the onions are golden brown. Add in the ginger, garlic, chili powder, paprika, and chicken and let the chicken briefly brown on both sides (about 2 minutes or so). Add in the yogurt and reduce heat to low; cook for about 30 minutes (for about half the cook time cover to conserve juices) or until the chicken it cooked through (no longer pink inside and the chicken will be firmer). Serve over rice. Makes enough to feed about 6 people.