Curry Chicken Salad with Purple Cauliflower

Copyright 2007 by Cooking With The Single Guy

Ingredients:
6 oz. chicken breast (about 2 skinless breast pieces)
2 cups purple cauliflower* florets (about half a cauliflower head)
½ cup celery (2 stalks), chopped
½ cup raisins
½ cup mayonnaise
1 t curry powder
1 t champagne vinegar
4 T extra virgin olive oil
sea salt and pepper

* Substitute with regular white cauliflower or 1 cup of chopped carrots

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Season your chicken breast with sea salt and pepper and coat with olive oil. Place on roasting pan and bake in oven for about 25-30 minutes, depending on the thickness. When done, remove from oven and let cool. Then chop into cubes.

Bring a pot of water to boil. Then quickly blanch your cauliflower (about 30 seconds) and then immediately place in a bowl of cold water with either a drop of vinegar or lemon juice to help retain the purple color. When ready to prepare your salad, drain the water and let the cauliflower air dry in colander.

In a small bowl, mix mayonnaise, curry powder and vinegar. Add a pinch of salt and pepper. Then combine all your ingredients in a big bowl: chicken, cauliflower, celery, raisin and mayonnaise mixture. Blend well, and then refrigerate. Serve as sandwiches or on a bed of butter lettuce as a salad.

Makes 3 to 4 servings.

Pair with a glass of Gewurtraminer.

TIP: If you don’t have champagne vinegar, replace with any light tasting white vinegar such as rice wine vinegar.

EVERYTHING’S PURPLE: The purple cauliflower is more tender than regular white cauliflower so you don’t need to blanch it that long. The longer you cook it in the boiling water, the more grey the color. (The purple color will fade as it cooks.) To also help prevent the color from fading, keeping the cauliflower in water with lemon juice or vinegar will help.