Tea smoked chicken salad with ginger lime vinaigrette!

Life is funny sometimes. My cousin got married Friday evening, and we all had a great time. My sister is getting married next month. Today was SUPPOSED to be her bridal shower. We wanted to have food, but keep it kind of light, and chicken salad was the idea. Except that my sister doesn’t really eat mayo, so I decided that I would come up with something that would keep her happy too. As you might imagine, I have lots of cookbooks, and although I may not have made anything out of all of them I have read through them, and sort of picked out anything that might come in handy for later. In this case I went to my copy of Heart of the Artichoke for this recipe. I decided to adapt it slightly for my needs. I made everything for the party before I knew it was going to be snowed out!

This is exactly the weather you expect in spring, right?

I had made tea smoked chicken before, but this turned out far better. It also took longer, but I think the results justify the extra time. The nice thing about this particular smoking method is that it was a little less intense. The chicken was pre-cooked and so all I needed to do was give it enough time in the smoke to give it flavor, rather than trying to cook it through. The first step will give you a very tasty broth which you could certainly eat if you wanted. I just don’t have space for that at the moment, but I did taste it, and it was very nice.

6 chicken legs quarters, salted and peppered (I broke them down into thighs and legs just to make them a little easier to deal with)

water to cover

1″ piece of ginger peeled and chopped roughly

2 cloves of garlic chopped

4 green onions, sliced into 1″ pieces

3 star anise

Season the chicken and allow it to sit  in the fridge for a couple of hours. Place in a large pot and add the water and all of the other ingredients. Bring up to a boil and then turn down to a simmer. Simmer for about 30 minutes, and then remove the chicken legs from the water. Allow the broth to simmer for another 30 minutes and adjust the seasoning. (If you want to keep it. I didn’t.)

On to the smoking! Here is where you want to make sure you have good ventilation! You can use the method I used in my previous post, or if you have a stove top smoker you can use that. I have a Cameron’s stove top smoker, and it works very well. It also uses less of the wood chips or tea in this case.

Cooked chicken legs

1/2 cup tea leaves (Yes, you can use Lipton)

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup raw white rice

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

1 tablespoon black peppercorns

1 teaspoon whole cloves

2 – 3 star anise crushed

Preheat the oven to 400F. Combine everything but the chicken legs in a bowl, and line a skillet with foil, and add the tea mixture to the bottom if the skillet. Then place a rack on top, and place the chicken on it. Place the lid on the skillet, and turn the heat on high. When you start to hear the sugar crackling and smell the smoke, give it two minutes, and then turn off the burner and place the whole thing in the oven for 10 minutes. Don’t take off the lid to check, or you will lose all of the smoke.

If you’re using a stove top smoker, follow the  manufacturer’s directions for how much wood chips (tea) to use. You can still use the time above.

Tea smoked chicken

Once the chicken was smoked I pulled the meat off the bones, and roughly chopped it into bite sized pieces.

Next I made the ginger lime vinaigrette.

Vinaigrette dressing are very simple to make, and add lots of flavor to a salad. In this case it complimented the chicken very nicely! You can use a whisk to make this dressing, but I almost always use my food processor. It chops up the shallots and ginger for me, and makes quick work of emulsifying the dressing. Mine is a small one, and for doing recipes like this it works perfectly.

1 shallot finely diced

1 garlic clove minced

2 teaspoons finely diced or grated ginger

(I just dropped all three in the food processor, and let it do what it does!)

1 Tablespoon rice vinegar

salt and pepper to taste

1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard (Pardon me, would you have any Grey Poupon?)

1/4 cup neutral oil, canola, grape seed

1 Tablespoon toasted sesame oil

juice of 1/2 lime

I also added about 1 Tablespoon of honey just to balance out the flavors a bit.

If you’re doing this with a whisk, add the shallots, garlic, and ginger to the bowl, and add the lime juice, vinegar, honey, and mustard, and whisk to combine. Slowly whisk in the oils, until combined. If you have a food processor you can use the same order. It will just go a bit more quickly.

Ginger Lime Vinaigrette

To serve your salads, mix a little of the dressing with the chicken, and then place a handful of spring greens on a plate (I drizzled a bit of the dressing on the greens as well.) Place the chicken on top of the greens, and add some sliced cucumber, and finely sliced scallions! Enjoy! It was a nice lunch with my family even if the shower was canceled!

Enjoy the delicious salad!

_