Chicken salad with capers and lemon
When temperatures hit 85 degrees last week, I made a chicken salad out of the half a roasted chicken leftover from “Postscript to Spanish food gets my attention.”
I served an arugula, red onion and nectarine salad with a slice of crusty olive-rosemary bread alongside the chicken. We had a chilled bottle of Oregon pinot gris to make the meal all the more refreshing.
I confess I didn’t measure exactly. I used mascarpone cheese, an Italian-style cream cheese, this time. It’s lighter, not so thick and easier to work with. Usually I use plain old Philly, but I had experimented with a tart of mascarpone, ham and asparagus a few days earlier and I had leftover mascarpone.
(I was disappointed in my attempt at a chilled tart as a main dish, so I’m not passing it on. I was mostly upset, I think, because homemade pie crust takes patience and while the pie crust was just fine, the filling didn’t please me or the Intrepid One. I would have been better off making a strawberry pie or something, which would have pleased both of us.)
Here’s the chicken salad recipe. This made about four servings.
Ingredients
1/2 a roasted chicken pulled from the carcass and cut into uniform pieces
1/2 a medium-sized onion
Juice from a lemon
3 tablespoons capers
Fresh dill, chopped finely
1/4 cup mascarpone cheese
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
Salt and pepper
Instructions
Place all the salad ingredients in a large bowl. Add the mascarpone and mayo. Toss. Salt and pepper to taste. Add more lemon and dill if you wish.
Janet Cleaveland
What happens when a retired journalist spends a lot more time in the kitchen than in past years? She tries new dishes and jumps at the chance to write a blog about food, family and good times. My kids are grown now, but I'll be looking back at how they learned to cook, what recipes my husband (the Intrepid One) and I are experimenting with, and how food and conversation make for happy times in the kitchen. I worked for The Columbian for 15 years as a copy editor and another 10 elsewhere, though I didn't start out as a journalist. I thought I wanted to teach English literature. My husband grew up in Clark County, and I've lived here since 1983. My kids have grown and left home. Like my husband of 52 years, our adopted chocolate Lab would never pass up a chance for a tasty meal.