Seasonal Pantry: New take on Chinese chicken salad

I’ve never had much of a taste for chicken salads, even Asian-style. But circumstances recently got the better of me and I found myself having to come up a version of Chinese chicken salad.

I did my best and actually liked what I made, though it can’t be called Chinese. Instead of canned water chestnuts, I used julienned jicama and I replaced canned Mandarins with segments of blood orange.

Borrowing from Southeast Asian cuisines, I added a very thinly sliced jalapeño and used roasted cashews instead of almonds. I used a simple homemade sesame ginger dressing rather than a bottled vinaigrette.

The results are pretty good and seemed to please my daughter Gina, who loves this style of salad.

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This salad makes a nice dinner on a warm night, especially when you have all the ingredients on hand.

Asian-Inspired Chicken Salad with Sesame Ginger Dressing

Serves 4 as a main course

- Sesame Ginger Dressings (recipe follows)

3-4 cooked chicken thighs (see Note 1 below)

½ Napa cabbages, shredded

4-5 scallions, trimmed and cut into very thin rounds

¼ cup very fresh mint leaves

½ cup very fresh cilantro leaves

1 small carrot, peeled and cut into thin julienne

½ small jicama, peeled and cut into thin julienne

1 blood orange or Cara Cara orange, peeled, membranes removed

1 small jalapeño, cut into very thin diagonal slices

¾ cup crisp noodles (see Note 2 below)

- Kosher salt

½ cup roasted cashews

Make the dressing and set it aside.

Pull the chicken off the bone and cut it into lengthwise slices. Set it aside.

Put the cabbage into a large bowl, add the scallions, mint, cilantro, carrot, jicama, orange and jalapeño. Season lightly with salt, add a tablespoon or two of dressing, toss and divide among individual plates or bowls. Add the crisp noodles and toss again.

Divide the chicken among the portions, scatter cashews on top and spoon dressing on everything. Serve right away.

Note 1: I usually cook chicken thighs for this salad in my toaster oven, seasoning them all over with salt and pepper and then setting them on the little rack with the oven preheated to 375 degrees on the baking setting, for 20 to 25 minutes, depending on the size of the thighs. The skin turns out beautifully crisp and you can, if you like, cut it into thin julienne and use it in place of the noodles.

Note 2: You can use commercial chow mein noodles or something similar, though I prefer to use thin rice noodles. To do so, use a sharp knife to cut one section of dry rice noodles in half. Pour a little peanut oil in a wok set on high heat. When it is hot, scatter the noodles into the pan, turn with long-handled tongs as they swell up and transfer to a bowl or plate. It takes just a few seconds.

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Sesame Ginger Dressing

Makes about ? cup

2 tablespoons rice vinegar

1 tablespoons soy sauce, plus more to taste

1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger

2 teaspoons honey or sugar, plus more to taste

1 teaspoon chili garlic sauce or other Asian or Asian-style hot sauce, plus more to taste

2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil

4 tablespoons peanut oil, preferably roasted

2 teaspoons lightly toasted sesame seeds

Put all the ingredients into a small Mason jar, close tightly with its lid and shake. Taste and correct for salt by adding more soy sauce as needed, and for sweetness and acid balance.

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The soup is close to the original gazpacho, a chilled soup of Spanish heritage that has nothing to do with tomatoes and everything to do with leftover bread. I’ve had a lot of good leftover bread lately and so I figured it was high time I made a batch of the soup. It is traditionally served with a few sliced green grapes as a garnish, but grapes are not in season right now and so I added a few almonds and a swirl of Terra Savio Olio Nuovo. It is so good, and has such a wallop of garlic that it must be really healthy, too.

Ajo Blanco

Serves 6 to 8

5-6 ounces, approximately, sturdy hearth bread, a few days old, in pieces

5-6 garlic cloves

-Hot water

1 cup unpasteurized raw almonds, blanched and peeled

4 tablespoons sherry vinegar

1 teaspoon hot Spanish paprika

-Kosher salt

-Black pepper in a mill

6 tablespoons boldly-flavored extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling

1/3 cup toasted and salted Marcona almonds

Put the bread into a deep bowl and add water to cover it. Set aside for at least 30 minutes and as long as a couple of hours. Put the garlic into a small bowl, cover it with hot water and set it aside for the same amount of time.

When the bread is very soft, squeeze out as much water as possible and put the wet bread into the work bowl of a food processor fitted with its metal blade. Drain the garlic and add it to the bread, along with the almonds and sherry vinegar. Add 1 cup of water and pulse several times, until the mixture is smooth and even. Add the paprika, season very generously with salt and add several turns of black pepper. Pulse several more times and then drizzle in the olive oil very slowly, with the machine operating.

Taste the soup and adjust for salt, adding as much as needed to make the flavors blossom. Adjust for acid balance, too, adding a bit more vinegar if not tart enough and a bit more olive oil if too tart.

Set a strainer over a deep bowl, pour the soup into it and use a sturdy wooden spoon to press as much of the liquid through as possible. Discard what is left behind, cover the soup and chill it thoroughly.

To serve, pour into small cups or little bowls and add a swirl of olive oil to each portion. Top with a few almonds and enjoy right away.

Michele Anna Jordan has written 19 books to date, including the new “More Than Meatballs.” Email Jordan at catsmilk@sonic.net. You’ll find her blog, “Eat This Now,” at pantry.blogs.pressdemocrat.com.