The Chicken Soup to Chicken Salad Continuum

Plus, Ten Commandments for a great chicken salad

Sometimes, chicken salad is the answer to all your qustions.

It’s all getting very close. Zariz, my next cookbook, comes out in two weeks and one day. Fifteen days between me and the beginning of my seven-week book tour abroad, away from home, a different city almost every day, seeing tons of friends and readers and followers and colleagues and airports and train stations.

And so, chicken salad.

My body is weak. At this writing we’re just a few days past six weeks spent at home as the war raged around us. It was an exercise in mental discipline, in keeping eyes on prizes and meeting many goals and deadlines surrounding the book baby while, in tandem, feeling and witnessing the sadness and devastation of war, the worry, the lack of control, the knowledge that you are both the target and also that your government is targeting other countries. Justified, perhaps, but still a heavy weight to bear.

There are many thoughts, many consequences, and many bags of snacks consumed after running into the “safe room.” We are beyond aware of our privilege that this steel-reinforced room exists. It was an afterthought when we bought our apartment in the Before Times, when wars were local and missiles weren’t ballistic and fear was dispensed in other forms from different vessels.

But this metal-encased box we scampered into for physical safety could not ensure an equal psychological insurance. So we clung to each other, we told jokes and played reels and games and we were loud, sometimes, to fill the voids of the unknown, and quiet when there was too much noise of all kinds around us.

Since the ceasefire last week, my body has hurt in a day-after-the marathon way (well, what I imagine that would feel like as I’ve never even attempted anything beyond a 10K). Muscles feel fried and sore, the brain is foggy, the instinct is to lie down when we’re supposed to be all about getting back up and going going going again. Because I kept myself moving so hard during the war, my corporeal self finally fell in on itself. I am leaning into it. I am making soups. Of the mushroom variety (see my last post). Of the chicken variety (see my Passover recipe download).

And then the chicken soup begat the chicken salad.

I had used a very good quality chicken for that soup, from a local grower named Lulu; a company that does all the right things. The chicken is golden and plump, but not overgrown in that Purdue-commercial flaunting your chicken like a pin-up ready for a Playboy centerfold sort of way, if you know what I mean. I also brought some beautiful, meaty chicken wings to add to the soup for body and extra flavor, and after cooking that soup low and slow for about 8 hours, using the method I perfected in my mom’s Overnight Chicken Soup recipe in the Sababa cookbook, I was left with all that chicken, still tender because of the extremely low temperature it was simmered under. So I set about the chicken salad.

The Ten Commandments of Chicken Salad

A chicken salad must have crunch.

It should have generous acid or tang or tartness. Usually in the form of lemon.

Mustard: Required.

It must have mayonnaise (yes, it must).

Lots of kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, please.

A sweet and savory contrast lends eating intrigue.

Fresh herbs add a lot.

A little sharpness in the form of red or white or yellow onion.

And a little spice never hurt anyone.

I had used up all my celery over Passover and for the chicken soup referenced above, so I replaced the crunch with tons of chopped tiny cornichon pickles and an entire tart Granny Smith apple, which I also doused in lemon juice to keep it from turning brown in the salad.

For the spicy, I finely diced part of a red Serrano pepper, seeds and all. Color AND flavor. Win-win.

For mayo, I used Best Foods, otherwise known as Hellman’s on the East Coast (and here in Israel, where it must be imported from). It’s the gold standard, and many of my mayo-based recipes are built around its balanced acidity, sweetness, and faint hint of mustard. If you use an Israeli mayo, or Duke’s, adjust accordingly,

For herbs, I typically default to dill, but I had a giant bunch of chives (chives here are so much better than the standard-issue wimpy DOA clamshell chives I got used to at Whole Foods, Sprouts, etc. So I chopped an obscene amount of them into a pile that resembled a mound of feathery kelly-green wood shavings.) Of course, use any gree things you have around. Dill, Tarragon. More parsley. Cilantro. I might personally draw the line at basil or mint, but this is your recipe now.

Onions. OK, I had a ton of scallions, but since I’d just plowed through those chives, I didn’t need any green oniony things. So I took off the whites, thinly sliced them, and in they went.

Acid: I pulled a fresh jar of my homemade preserved lemons out of the second fridge downstairs. Mine are tender-skinned, with soft, pulpy interiors. You remove the seeds and then work that knife to get the lemons processed down to almost a paste (little yellow bits of the skins are great, and pretty as hell).

Mustard: I used a classic Dijon, but grainy would be so, so nice. I’ll try it next time!

And the chicken itself. I stripped all the meat from the bones and gave the chicken a rough chop. When I mixed all the ingredients together, the chicken broke down further into a delicious texture just begging to be scooped like a 1950s fever dream onto a bed of lettuce, then eaten with some good sourdough (or, let’s face it, Triscuits or Ritz crackers).

Chicken Salad

Makes 6 to 7 cups

(Recipe can be halved)

½ cup to 2/3 cup mayonnaise, depending on your love of mayo (mine is high)

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt, plus more to taste

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 pounds chicken meat, from a 4-pound whole cooked chicken

1 Granny Smith apple, finely diced, tossed in 1 tablespoon lemon juice

½ cup finely minced chives

¼ finely chopped parsley

½ cup finely minced scallion whites, red onion, or other onion

¼ cup very finely chopped seeded preserved lemon (rinsed if very salty), plus more to taste*

2 teaspoons finely diced jalapeno or Fresno chili (seeded if desired)

2-3 tablespoons finely chopped cornichons or other pickles (plus some of their brine if needed, for saltiness)

Whisk the mayo, mustard, salt, and pepper in a large bowl. Add the chicken, apple,

chives, parsley, scallion whites, preserved lemon, jalapeno, and cornichons (hold off on the brine for now) and stir gently until everything is well incorporated. Season with more lemon, salt, pepper, and pickle brine. Salad can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to five days.

*You can swap in the finely grated zest of 1 large lemon, then remove and discard the white pith, seed the inside, chop it up, and add it to the mix a tablespoon at a time.