This is a blog featuring my personal stories of food, gardening, yachting, photography, travel and life.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Curried Brown Rice Chicken Salad

Oh, this salad is so good! It was served at a luncheon for the staff at my former school during my recent "re-employment". One of the student's mothers in my classroom brought this salad in and everyone raved about it.

She kindly gave me the recipe and I have made it several times since. In fact I am eating a small bowl of it as I write this.

So hear it is. You MUST try it. So simple and there are lots of options for how to prepare it. I have included a few possibilities at the end of the recipe.

2 cups of cooked long grain brown rice, cooled and tossed in a little oil
1/3 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup each celery, carrots, red pepper
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/3 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped roasted nuts

Dressing: whisk together

2-3 t sweet curry powder
1-2 T sweet or hot mango chutney (chopped if lumpy)
4 T (1/4 cup) mayonnaise
1-2 T vegetable oil
1/4 t salt
1/2 t black pepper

Toss all ingredients in a medium bowl with the rice. Pour dressing over mixture and toss until well blended.

Now for the options!

Add in 1 cup of cooked, chopped chicken. OR, 1 cup of cooked salad shrimp. OR, leave the meat out for a wonderful vegetarian salad. Try different veggies like cucumber, radish, cilantro instead of the parsley, etc. Try chopped, dried apricot pieces or dried cranberries instead of or with the raisins.

Try different types of nuts. Hazelenuts, almonds, cashews, walnuts. Get the idea? It all works with this salad. And did I mention it is SO good!

Bon appetit