Weekly Dish

I really want to start making really autumn-ish dishes and telling you all about how warming and comforting they are. I’ve been trying to get in the spirit of the season. See, I made soup yesterday? But here’s the thing. It’s in the eighties still. I am wearing t-shirts and flip-flops to class. How am I supposed to assume my place stirring a big steaming pot of soup when I have the air conditioning running? I couldn’t fight it anymore this week…salad it is (or was).

To dress my salad appropriately for the season, I started by gathering the greens right from my backyard. David’s first official vegetables in our garden include an assortment of greens, but we aren’t sure exactly what all of them are. As best we can tell, there’s some kind of curly lettuce, a red-leaf one, kale, and a bright green one with small round leaves (baby lettuce? butter lettuce? David doesn’t remember).

Grilling seemed a good option since it had cooled off a little bit by dusk, so I marinated some chicken breasts in a sweet and sour mixture, and David grilled them for me. For the dressing, I wanted it to be warm to wilt the greens a little bit. So I started by frying some bacon, and then added shallots, pecans, and some diced pear. It turned out to be a lovely combination of flavors, and the warm dressing made it feel more like a fall dish (without the my-standing-over-a-hot-stove-for-a-really-long-time part). After the chicken is cooked, the salad comes together really quickly. Here’s how it worked:

SWEET-HOT GRILLED CHICKEN SALAD

For the chicken:

2 pounds chicken breasts

3/4 cup soy sauce

1/2 cup rice vinegar (cider vinegar would work too)

2 T. dark cane syrup or molasses

2 T. sesame oil

1 T. fish sauce

2 T. hot chili sauce (I use Sambal, a Thai version)

Juice of 1 lemon

Mix all; marinate for a few hours or overnight. Grill chicken over medium flame.

For the Warm Balsamic Vinaigrette:

4 pieces bacon

2 shallots, minced

1/2 pear, diced

1/2 cup pecan pieces

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

1 t. dark cane syrup or molasses

1/2 t. salt

Cook the bacon in a medium skillet until done; remove. Add the shallots and cook until tender, about 4 minutes. Add the pear and pecans, and cook about 5 more minutes until the pear is very soft. Add the vinegar, syrup, and salt, and cook another minute or two, stirring constantly.

To assemble the salad:

Mixed salad greens, washed and torn

Remaining half of pear, diced

1/2 cup chopped green onions

Spread greens on plate; top with pear, green onions, chicken, and bacon slices. Pour dressing warm on top of salad.

Posted: Thursday, November 10th, 2005 at 4:03 pm Filed under: Main Dish, Salad, Meat, Vegetables. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.