Chef's Salad

[Bird]

I just wondered how many, besides myself, are fond of a "Chef's Salad". And yep, a Chef's Salad means different things to different people, I guess, since the recipe can vary. In our house, a Chef's Salad (as with most salads) has to start with chopped lettuce, tomato, onion, and grated cheese. After that . . . , well, I like a boiled egg; she doesn't. I like a few olives; she doesn't. She likes a little cucumber; I don't. But we both agree that if we have a little grated carrot, chopped broccoli and cauliflower, and even a little finely chopped celery, throw it in there.

Now most Chef's Salads that I've eaten in restaurants had either cold turkey strips or ham strips, or both. And they're all good; some just a bit better than others.

But I've invented the ultimate in Chef's Salads. [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] Well, OK, just for my own taste maybe, but you might want to try it sometime. [img]/forums/images/icons/blush.gif[/img] After the ingredients in the first paragraph above, I skip the turkey and ham. Instead, I cut a few strips of bacon into very small pieces (about 3 slices for 2 people). Frying that in a skillet will substitute for "bacon bits" and provide the grease for the next step. I'll have one or two boneless, skinless chicken breasts diced into quarter to half inch pieces, which I'll add to the skillet with the bacon after the grease or oil had pretty well cooked out of the bacon. After spreading the chicken pieces fairly evenly in the skillet, I sprinkle pretty liberally with red (cayenne) pepper. Then I stir and cook over medium heat until the chicken is well done.

The chicken and bacon are then added, still hot, to the salad. I top with Ranch dressing. My wife sometimes uses Ranch and sometimes uses Thousand Island. I eat crackers with mine (sometimes saltines, sometimes club crackers) while my wife prefers corn chips, such as dorritos.

So that's my favorite salad! [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

[Pat]

Bird, There you go again, making me hungry!

I recall the summer when my dad was transfered to Lindsay and the only restaurant worthy of the name at the time served a chef's salad that was to his liking and that was what he had for supper nearly every night till mom and us kids arrived a few months later and his tasty and nutritious weight loss regimen was interrupted with my mom's down home Oklahoma style cooking.

Gee, I haven't had a chef's salad since the one I made for us for lunch Sunday.

Pat

[gardeningangel]

Hi Bird, I don't care for the strips of meat in the Chef's Salad but chicken and bacon.... oh my that sounds delicious. Now the cayenne after cooked with the chicken is it very hot? I can't handle really hot stuff, but its worth a try. Like with Jalapenos after cooking a little while are not so hot, I would think the cayenne would keep its heat. Ruth

[Bird]

I sprinkle the cayenne before the chicken is cooked, or as it's cooking. I don't want things really hot anymore myself, but I do like a little spark there. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img] I don't know how to tell you how much since I've never measured it. You don't want the chicken "covered" with the pepper, but you do want to sprinkle enough to see it. And to me, the cayenne doesn't seem to hold its heat as much as jalapenos, or maybe it's because it's a different kind of heat. The heat from cayenne just never seemed to bother me as much as the heat from jalapenos. We even like to sprinkle it on raw pieces of chicken that we're going to cook on the grill outside.