One of the April recipes to try for the Bare­foot Blog­gers  was the Bare­foot Contessa’s Chi­nese Chicken Salad.  I know I know – it’s the end of the month but it is done.  I am regain­ing my cook­ing mojo and, thank­fully, this recipe made me think quick on my feet.

I’ve noticed with the Food Net­work, some­times it’s like recipe roulette  when they post the recipes.  As I was using my black­berry for cook­ing instruc­tions, I didn’t have the abil­ity to check the com­ments.  What I can say is that the dress­ing was WAY too salty.  I had to impro­vise and get some­thing to coun­ter­act all the salt so I added more honey.  That seemed to help but it still was miss­ing some “umph” so, spot­ting some limes nearby I added that and it “didn’t suck” as I so ele­quently put it.  It wasn’t super stel­lar either.   I’ll try it on my work guinea bud­dies tomor­row and see their opin­ion and report back.

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CHINESE CHICKEN SALAD

Recipe cour­tesy of Ina Garten, Bare­foot Con­tessa Parties!

Ingre­di­ents

• 4 split chicken breasts (bone-in, skin-on)
• Good olive oil
• Kosher salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 pound aspara­gus, ends removed, and cut in thirds diagonally
• 1 red bell pep­per, cored and seeded
• 2 scal­lions (white and green parts), sliced diagonally
• 1 table­spoon white sesame seeds, toasted

For the dressing:

• 1/2 cup veg­etable oil
• 1/4 cup good apple cider vinegar
• 3 table­spoons soy sauce
• 1 1/2 table­spoons dark sesame oil
• 1/2 table­spoon honey
• 1 clove gar­lic, minced
• 1/2 tea­spoon peeled, grated fresh ginger
• 1/2 table­spoon sesame seeds, toasted
• 1/4 cup smooth peanut butter
• 1 tea­spoons kosher salt
• 1/2 tea­spoon freshly ground black pepper

Direc­tions

Pre­heat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Place the chicken breasts on a sheet pan and rub with the skin with olive oil. Sprin­kle lib­er­ally with salt and pep­per. Roast for 35 to 40 min­utes, until the chicken is just cooked. Set aside until cool enough to han­dle. Remove the meat from the bones, dis­card the skin, and shred the chicken in large bite-sized pieces.

Blanch the aspara­gus in a pot of boil­ing salted water for 3 to 5 min­utes until crisp-tender. Plunge into ice water to stop the cook­ing. Drain. Cut the pep­pers in strips about the size of the aspara­gus pieces. Com­bine the cut chicken, aspara­gus, and pep­pers in a large bowl.

Whisk together all of the ingre­di­ents for the dress­ing and pour over the chicken and veg­eta­bles. Add the scal­lions and sesame seeds and sea­son to taste. Serve cold or at room temperature.