Chicken Shred Cilantro Stick Salad

I said what I said

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Hello Comrades!

Sometimes the name of a recipe precedes the actual recipe, and this salad is one of those times. (I’m lucky I have an outlet for when the words “Chicken Shred Cilantro Stick” float across my consciousness.)

I’m back in regular recipe-development mode for you sweeties and you alone. It’s summer, a seductive time to think about ingredients and situations and sweaty nights, when disrobing and showering are non-negotiable before heading to the kitchen to solve dinner.

If you’ve already been out-in-the-world sweaty, and are now cool and clean and hungry, the last thing you want to do is get sweaty again. As a rule, I want to wear less clothing and do fewer dishes. I do not want to get grease spatter on my lightest cotton robe, which is what I’m wearing when I cook in June, July, and August. I want to leave the cleanup for a teenager without hearing a ton of garumphing and an impassioned monologue about how life is unfair. Is it possible to be basic, but not boring? I think skinless chicken breasts were invented to address these desires, and I came up with a recipe to test that theory.

I have proven once before that boneless skinless chicken breasts can be good. Could I do that again, but without generating quite as much heat? The answer is yes, because of poaching. If only poaching were cool.

Poaching, like steaming, has never really done it for me, because I love fat and those methods are lean by definition. What makes both techniques genius, though, is the way they deliver high heat and high moisture. High heat means fast, high moisture means not the texture of cardboard. This is exactly the kind of insurance we need to make lean chicken breasts sexy again. Using half the salad ingredients to enrich the poaching liquid was my way of adding flavor to the dish without making any of us put half an onion and part of a bunch of cilantro back in the fridge.

Cubes and chunks are my least favorite food shape words. In fact, chunk is banned from my recipe vocabulary. I wanted to tear my chicken breast along the seams like rags. That’s the chicken shred part of the recipe. The cilantro stick part was inspired by certain cold Sichuan dishes that deploy herbs for their textural contributions as much as for their flavors. I loved the combo of the shaggy chicken strips and the crisp, bowed cilantro stems. So fun to eat.

Soy and black vinegar followed—about as original as a black leather belt but no less essential. Dressing the cilantro stems and onion separately from the chicken kept them bright and vibrant, and mixing the two elements together brings the salad to life.

First draft: shrimp crackers went soggy (became peanuts), and the whole thing was simply too greige. On the next pass, I kept the cilantro salad separate and dressed it with lime for extra punch.

I’m really happy with where I landed, especially because the leftovers are killer, too. Dishes that are good the next day are truly useful these days, given the randomness of mealtimes in the summer program over here. My older son is home from college doing his thing, my younger one is waking up comically ravenousat 1 P.M., and my self-employed eating schedule is completely unpredictable. If by some miracle we end up having dinner together, these leftovers will be in hot demand the next day, whether as breakfast or late lunch. I even took them to the beach last week. That’s what you call a miracle.

Viva summer! Viva white meat chicken???

xoCLM

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The recipe for Chicken Shred Cilantro Stick Salad is posted below for paid subscribers. Thank you for supporting my work! This newsletter would not exist without you.