“What are you doing here?” I asked our daughter Elizabeth after I gave her a hug and a kiss. I didn’t mean to sound inhospitable, but it was a mid-week afternoon when most people were working.
“Because I own my own business and I can do this,” she answered.
I need my own business.
She had come to carry her father for an outing to check that the world was running as it should. I was making chicken salad, and I was pretty sure that would help.
This Regal Chicken Salad is an old recipe from a cookbook I have had for years, “Cooking for Company,” published in 1968. Many dishes can be prepared in a variety of ways – vegetable soup, potato salad, beef stew, etc., depending on the habits and preferences of the cooks – and chicken salad is one of these. I checked the Internet, which stated there are 23,000 recipes for chicken salad. Either that is excessive, or I misread it.
Cooks in other parts of the country make chicken salad, but it seems to be a typical Southern food – jut right for our hot summer days.
Prepared many ways, chicken salad can be made with apples, pineapple and grapes; with green pepper, finely diced sweet pickle, onions, chopped pimiento; with almonds, pecans and peanuts. One can use lemon juice, wine vinegar or curry to add taste. For a binder, one can use salad dressing, mayonnaise or sour cream.
Chicken salad can be patted firmly into a measuring cup to form a shape and then turned onto a plate. It can be prepared with gelatin, chilled and cut into squares. It can be chilled in a ring mold, filling the center with fruit, vegetables or cottage cheese. It can be served in a pretty glass bowl.
It can be made with all white chicken or the whole chicken. The chicken can be boiled, baked or grilled.
Chicken salad is versatile in its use. It can be the main course at a light lunch, one of the items on a mixed buffet, as a spread for crackers or toast points for an appetizer, or for sandwiches – either hearty ones for a take-a-long lunch, or dainty ones. If the salad is to be used for sandwiches (a staple for ladies club meetings), the chicken should be cut into very small pieces for spreading on the sandwiches – which are then cut into halves, fourths or other shapes after the crusts are cut away.
For sandwiches, one can use white, whole wheat or other bread – but most people like the thin, white sandwich bread. Sandwiches can be made a day ahead of serving, covered with plastic wrap and refrigerated. The salad can also be covered and kept two or three days in the refrigerator.
Chicken salad is an institution in the South, so try this or another similar recipe this weekend. Make it on Saturday and put it in the fridge so it will be waiting for you when you return home from church the next day for a warm-day … Sunday Dinner.
Regal Chicken Salad
4 cups cooked chicken
1 1-lb.-4½-oz. can pineapple chunks
1 cup seedless green grapes
1 cup chopped celery
½ cup coarsely chopped dry salted peanuts
Salt
¼ teaspoon dried tarragon
1 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons pineapple juice
Drain the pineapple, saving the juice. If grapes are large, cut into halves or fourths. Combine the chicken, pineapple, grapes, celery and peanuts. Taste for salt and add if needed. Stir in the tarragon.
Combine mayonnaise, lemon juice and 2 tablespoons of the saved pineapple juice. Gently fold into the chicken mixture.
Serve on lettuce with parsley or small celery leaves for garnish.
Serves 8.
Note: Although the recipe asks for peanuts, I used pecans. If you prefer, you may used drained pineapple tidbits instead of the chunks.