Saturday, February 28, 2009

Immaculate Conception Salad


This heavenly salad gets its name because it was conceived of by my mom, Mary, and because it manages to combine something from EVERY FOOD GROUP (when served with a hunk of whole-grain bread) in the most delicious way possible. Remember that cereal that tried to pull off the same feat, Basic 4? Yeah...it's alot better than that. And because it is basically a food pyramid in salad form, it boasts a wide variety of nutrients: protein from the chicken, calcium from the feta, vitamin A & fiber from the dark leafy greens, vitamin E and minerals (like iron & magnesium) from the pine nuts, and tons of vitamin C from the orange & sweet potato. Vegetarians could try substituting soy protein for the chicken; if you feel like trying a veg version of this salad, let me know how it turns out!

You can easily come home from work and prepare this salad in less than 30 minutes. It's the kind of thing I'd suggest making in a giant batch, because believe me, you're gonna want leftovers. The recipe below makes about four servings.

Ingredients:
1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 large sweet potatoes, coarsely chopped
2 oranges, coarsely chopped
1 cup crumbled feta
1/2 cup pine nuts
2 bags (about 8 cups) dark salad greens
a little salt & pepper and olive oil for cooking
your favourite fruity vinaigrette (i LOVE Annie's papaya poppyseed!)

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees while you chop the sweet potatoes. Spread the bite-size pieces onto a baking sheet, drizzle with a Tbsp. of olive oil, and rub them around to cover all sides. Grind or sprinkle salt and pepper over the sweet potato, and pop them into the oven for about 20 minutes.
2. Pour another tsp. of olive oil into a frying pan, and get the chicken going. Add a little salt and pepper while they cook.
3. Wrap a whole-grain baguette tightly in foil and pop it into the oven to warm. Check on the sweet potatoes, giving them a little stir with your spatula.
4. Wash and dry the greens and chop the oranges. Throw them into a bowl or onto a plate and sprinkle each serving with 1/4 cup of crumbled feta.
5. When the chicken is done, transfer it to a cutting board and cut it into bite size pieces (or serve it in breast-form for if you'd rather.) Throw the pine nuts into the frying pan and toast over medium-low heat, stirring. This only takes a minute or two and totally transforms the flavour of the pine nuts!
6. Remove the sweet potatoes from the oven and add everything to your salad. Drizzle with vinaigrette, and say a Hail Mary. 

p.s. thanks to my roommate seth for taking a great picture!

6 comments:

  1. This salad really is incredible in person. The pic of it was my first attempt at food photography and doesn't really capture its magnificence. You should see an improvement in the illustration in future. Thanks to my roomie Hillary for getting me into this new (to me) area of photography!

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  2. It's so nice to be appreciated!
    I also put dried cranberries on this salad. (The colors in this salad are really a pleasure.) If you can't get good oranges, use canned mandarin oranges--yummy.

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  3. This looks great! This goes on our table this week. Thanks, thanks.

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  4. another tip: let the chicken sit after you take it off the heat while you do the nuts and get the sweet potato out, by cutting the chicken last it has a chance to absorb its juices which makes it less dry.

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  5. This salad is at its very best with charcoal-grilled chicken. OK, I think I'm done with my comments...

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