I’d had the Peruvian chicken on the menu all week — a first-time recipe. At the last minute I was asked to fill in and deliver a meal to a new mom. I threw together the asparagus salad on a whim, not entirely sure that the flavors would work with the chicken. Fortunately, the two made a decent pairing.
Peruvian Chicken
Chicken + mess = yummy dinner.
I got the recipe for Peruvian chicken from the Whole Foods app on iPhone, a handy little tool that allows you to search for meals as you wander through a supermarket, wondering what to buy for dinner. The same recipe is also available through their website.
The burned onions were visually disappointing, but they didn't have a negative effect on flavor.
The fun part about this recipe? Paprika and cumin-stained hands.
The drawback? In spite of basting, some of the onions blackened more than I would have liked. I decided to pull out the worst offenders and feed them to the garbage disposal, after which the finished product looked perfectly presentable.
Asparagus Salad
This recipe was loosely based on a very tasty salad that I had at Nordstrom Bistro in Dallas last fall. I’ve made it a few times in the past, and couldn’t quite get the necessary bite from the sun dried tomato dressing. This time I mixed two kinds of vinegar and used spring garlic instead of shallots for extra kick. When spring garlic isn’t in season, I might consider a blend of minced garlic and shallots.
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup sun dried tomatoes
- 2 Tbsp sherry vinegar
- 2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
- 1 small spring garlic
- Fresh thyme
- Fresh oregano
- 2/3 cup olive oil
- Asparagus, blanched and cut into 2″ long segments
- Cucumber, sliced in half lengthwise and cut into thick half-moons
- Cherry tomatoes, cut in half
- Red onion, sliced
- Feta cheese
Instructions
The iPhone picture doesn't do it justice. It's pretty and colorful in person.
Combine the first seven ingredients (through oregano) in a food processor. Add olive oil slowly to create an emulsion. The result will be a thick, tangy vinaigrette that I’d imagine would also be yummy with grilled chicken.
Toss the vinaigrette with the vegetables. Serve over a bed of greens and garnish with crumbled feta.
Results: The Tiny Kitchen Assistant gave the chicken a thumbs-up for color, just as long as I didn’t serve his with onions or peppers touching it. He even went so far as to request the leftovers for lunch tomorrow, claiming that he’d be guaranteed to have the best lunch at preschool if he could just have Peruvian chicken and jasmine rice. He wholeheartedly rejected the salad because dressing touched the tomatoes; he is absolutely, positively a tomato purist.