I love cookbooks, but I don?t often cook from them much. When I do, I usually change them to my likings. I happen to have two of Alton Brown?s cookbooks, and if you are not familiar with him, you should be. He makes learning how to cook fun and really understandable (check out his Food Network show, Good Eats, and you?ll know what I am talking about). So I was looking through one of his books, and got inspired by his broiled chicken salad recipe. It?s not really a recipe so much as a story about being at a coworker?s house and needing food even though there was little in the fridge and really crappy cookware. So Alton grabbed a couple of things and made this salad out of necessity, and the moral of the story is, work with what you have on hand and you can end up with something really nice. He listed a recipe for the salad, but taking inspiration from his story, I altered it based on what I had on hand. He used a whole chicken, split in half and cooked under the broiler?I had chicken tenders, so I saut?ed them. He used the fat from the chicken to baste sour dough bread cubes and broiled them to make croutons, but since tenders have no fat on them, I cooked up some streaky (smoked American) bacon and took the fat it rendered out to brush on the bread cubes. Now, I could have used plain old olive oil, but I LOVE bacon fat (some may say I sweat bacon fat I love it so much), so that?s what I used. I threw on a little salt and pepper, and broiled the cubes until they were crispy, stirring it every now and then to ensure even browning. Now, I have been attempting to cook healthier because of my ibs, and pretty much everything I love to eat, bacon fat included, is not allowed. But what I?ve found is that if I put as much good stuff for in a recipe as I can and use the bad stuff sparingly, it doesn?t hurt me. So instead of tossing the bread with the bacon fat, I used a pastry brush for each individual cube so I could monitor how much fat I put on there. I also used spray oil instead of olive oil to saut? the chicken, because spray oil puts out much less oil than oil straight from the bottle, and its better for me than olive oil, which is what I typically use. Plus, I had a little bacon to put on the salad. Alton broiled cherry tomatoes, olives and scallions until the tomatoes had some color, and I had it all except the scallions, so in that all went too. I love cooking cherry tomatoes. They get so juicy and melty! I also chopped up some cucumbers and avocado, which Alton did not have. Finally, I washed some rocket (arugula in the States), and that was in the recipe. Alton used champagne vinegar and just splashed it on the salad, but all I had on hand was balsamic and rice vinegar. I like a little more flavor in my dressings than just vinegar, but oil was a not an option, so I reduced some of the balsamic with chicken broth, and ended up with a nice, almost syrupy liquid that was sweet and savory and ibs safe. I tossed the warm tomatoes and olives with the arugala to wilt it a bit, and then added the reduction sauce, and tossed in the rest of the ingredients. This salad rocked so hard, people in China were rubbing their asses wondering, what the hell was that? OH! Leena?s kick ass salad. Avocadoes were such a nice, buttery touch too, I highly recommend using them. ~LTG
