Curried Chicken Salad

This is unbelievably easy if you buy ready-cooked chicken. Thinking ahead, too, it's also a great recipe for leftover turkey on Boxing Day.

Serves 12 as part of a buffet

Ingredients

1 level tablespoon Madras curry paste
2 medium ready-to-eat roast chickens, or 2 lb (900 g) cooked leftover turkey or chicken
3 oz (75 g) whole blanched almonds
5 fl oz (150 ml) mayonnaise (click here for recipe)
3 fl oz (75 ml) natural yoghurt
2 tablespoons mango chutney, with any bits of mango finely chopped
3 oz (75 g) raisins
3 oz (75 g) dried ready-to-eat apricots, quartered
1 bunch spring onions, sliced thinly, including the green parts
1 x 120 g bag baby leaf salad
1 tablespoon fresh coriander leaves, to garnish
salt and freshly milled black pepper

Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 4, 350°F (180°C).

Spread the almonds out on a baking sheet and toast in the oven for 8 minutes, using a timer. Let them cool for a couple of minutes, then roughly chop them.

Now strip all the meat from the chickens, discarding the skin and bones, and cut it into bite-sized pieces and place them in a mixing bowl. Then, in a small bowl, mix the mayonnaise and yoghurt with the curry paste and mango chutney, then pour this sauce over the chicken. Next, add the raisins, apricots, about three-quarters of the salad onions and about two-thirds of the almonds. Mix everything together thoroughly, taste and season, then cover and chill till needed.

When you are ready to serve, place the salad leaves in the base of a serving dish and spoon the chicken over the top, heaping it up to give it some height. Then scatter the reserved salad onions and almonds and the coriander leaves over the top.

This recipe is taken from The Delia Collection: Chicken. It has also appeared in Sainsbury’s Magazine (November 1999).

Other recipes to look at:

Home-made Mayonnaise

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