Chinese Chicken Salad

To counteract the delicious blueberry coffe cake that I made on Sunday, I've been eating salads for the past two days. Hardly a sacrifice. I love salads and this one is a favorite. I've actually made this salad three times since New Year's Eve when we had it with won tons. When the kids were at home, our New Year's Eve consisted on making won tons with Chinese Chicken Salad. I'd almost forgotten how good this salad is. It's fun to make, too, because you use these Mai Fun Chinese rice sticks fried in hot oil. Sometimes they are called Rice Thread Noodles.

Once you drop them in the hot oil, they immediately puff up into crunchy, Chinese-style croutons.

It's always a thrill to make these and then drop them into the salad to add some crunch. Kids love this salad because when you make these rice noodles, it's like they come alive. Like the name implies, so much Fun!

Makes 4 servings

1/2 head shredded iceberg lettuce

2 Tbsp. almonds, chopped

2 Tbsp. toasted sesame seeds

1/2 lb. cooked, skinned chicken breast

1/2 cup frozen peas

1-2 oz. Mai Fun sticks or Rice Thread noodles

1. Combine above ingredients except Mai Fun sticks.

2.. Heat oil in a pan. When oil is sizzling hot, add one Mai Fun stick to test if oil is hot enough. It should puff up immediately. If not, let oil continue to heat up.

3. When oil is hot enough, drop a handful of Mai Fun sticks into oil.

and watch them puff up immediately.

4. Remove immediately with a slotted spoon and drain on a paper towel.

5. While Mai Fun sticks are cooling, make dressing by combining together:

1/4 cup oil

3 Tbsp. white vinegar

2 Tbsp. sugar

juice of one lemon

1/2 tsp. pepper

6. When Mai Fun sticks are cool, drop into salad and toss.

(You can see that if you don't remove them immediately, they quickly start to brown but will still taste good)

7. Pour dressing over salad and toss together.

If you don't plan to eat all of it, do not mix dressing into salad but serve on the side. Otherwise, the leftover salad will become wilted and soggy. But this salad is so good there usually is not leftovers.

Comments

Meatloaf by Mark Bittman

Once again, I turned on the television yesterday and saw that Mark Bittman was on the Today show and was making his version of meatloaf . This must be meatloaf season. It was surprisingly similar to the Pioneer Woman's version who was also recently on. I was a little surprised of his version because Mark Bittman is into healthy eating and has lost a lot of weight and improved his health by changing his diet which he writes about in his book, Food Matters . His meatloaf recipe also included bacon and cheese! I must be doing something wrong. The thing to remember, which he writes about in his book, is that you can eat healthy without going extreme or changing your whole life. If you don't know who Mark Bittman is, he is a food writer and a four star chef with multiple cookbooks who loves to eat but changed his food philosophy to improve his health. He tells his story in Food Matters and provides a plan for responsible eating that covers a no-nonsense rundown on

Trader Joe's Gluten-Free Oatmeal, Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Cookies

I don't have very many gluten-free cookies on my blog because quite frankly, I usually don't like gluten-free. But occasionally, I do find a good recipe and this is one that is from the back of the Trader Joe's oatmeal and it's a good one. My friend brought some over to our house last weekend when Nick and family were here for our birthday celebrations and we all loved them. My friends lives a few blocks away and we walk the neighborhood together on weekends. We can easily go 5 miles in no time, talking non-stop. She loves exploring our neighborhood as much as I do and we discover so many favorite little spots. We even found a property with a horse (or more like a pony, I should say.) The views are always quite lovely, too. Bruce and I had our thirty-ninth wedding anniversary on July 18th and I made a point of walking past the house where we had our wedding reception. I told my friend, "Thirty-nine years ago today, there was a big party g

Spinach Stuffed Cod

Last night, I was in the mood for a healthy dinner so decided to experiment with a recipe I found from a blog called Creative in My Kitchen . Lauren and Ari brought us French cookies back from their trip to Paris and I basically inhaled them. They were so good! We were cat-sitting their two cats while they were gone. They liked lounging in the strangest places... I found one of their toys while I was cleaning so Lauren stopped by last night to pick it up on her way home from work. I was experimenting with this recipe which originally called for chicken breast but I thought it sounded good to substitute fish instead since I'm always looking for good fish recipes. We all thought it was totally delicious. When I went to the grocery store, they had Icelandic cod on sale so I bought about 2 pounds of that. You could use any white fish for this recipe such as: true cod or other cod rockfish halibut had

Sylvia's Scenario

Search This Blog