Repost: Chicken Salad with Caramelized Onion, Apples and Pine Nuts

This is a real fancy pants chicken salad that 's great in a sandwich or just by itself. Also it's best made the day before, so it frees up time on the day you're having your cookout, if that's what you're making it for.

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Sorry, this is one where I can't list a real recipe. See, dressing proportions for this kind of stuff is really a personal thing, what I like might not be what you like and vice versa. Plus I have no idea how much of each thing I put in. Heh. But here is what is in it, with some estimates on how much:

cooked chicken, about 1 1/2 pounds (I braised it in chicken broth with parsley, black pepper, sage, rosemary and thyme)
caramelized onion, 3/4 of a cup before caramelizing (I'll do a how-to post on that soon) (update: and I did too!)
pine nuts, no clue
a golden delicious apple, it was kind of small
fresh black pepper, lots. At least a dozen twists on a grinder
sage, maybe a half a tsp.
tarragon, maybe a 1/2 tsp
mayonnaise, quarter cup or so? Probably more.
dijon mustard, about a tsp

So, I've covered chicken salad before. But this one is pretty different and that was an old post that wanted updating. Of course I didn't manage to get pictures of the whole process this time, I thought I had, but here we are. So there will probably be at least one more chicken salad post, some time in the future. Probably in the summer, to make it more topical.

Anyway, I've always kept my chicken salad simple in the past, this is actually the first time I've ever put fruit in it. Or nuts. Both were quite good, I was most pleased. I don't remember when I got the idea to caramelize the onion, but that was probably my favorite part. It gave a lot of great, mellow onion flavor, plus a bit of sweetness. I usually add tarragon to chicken salad, but figured if I was adding apple I should really put some sage in there too. A little bacon would have been good too...

Anyway, here is what I did. I took everything but the apples, chicken and nuts and mixed it all up. Then I peeled, cored and cut the apple and tore the chicken into bite sized chunks. I tear the chicken instead of cube it because you get more texture that way. Plus I don't have to re-dirty up my cutting board. Then I added the pine nuts. Then the dressing. And mixed it. And didn't take a picture other than the one in the ramekin and the sandwich. But I got a picture of how evenly toasted my sub roll was. That's something, right? Right.

But this was a great chicken salad, I would definitely make it again. Next time I want to use cashews instead of pine nuts, I bet that would be even better. Some prosciutto would have been nice, maybe even some melon instead of apple. A bit of fresh squeezed lemon juice or maybe some zest would add some brightness, especially if adding salted meat. Well, more experiments are clearly needed.

Repost: Homemade Ice Cream Sandwiches

Who doesn't like ice cream sandwiches? I have a theory about that actually. Anyway, not only is this a great thing but itself, but it could be turned into a group activity too. Have everything ready, everyone makes their own (you could have all kinds of different candies/nuts to roll them in) and then put it in the freezer before lunch/dinner. Then by the end of the meal dessert is ready to go.

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4 large chocolate chip peanut butter cookies
1 1/4 cups softened ice cream
1/4 cup chopped salted peanuts
2 tbls chocolate chips

Split the softened ice cream between two of the cookies. Top with the other two cookies. Press together gently so they hold and a little ice cream comes out the sides. Roll them sideways in the chopped nuts and chips. Place in the freezer for at least an hour to harden.

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So here is what I kept hinting at in the peanut butter cookie post. These things were wicked good. I love ice cream sandwiches made with cookies, so making my own was a natural step. This is actually what the original cookie recipe is for, it's "I" in the Alpha Bakery, for ice cream sandwich. It has the cookie recipe and the way to make ice cream sandwiches out of them. But it has you dip half of the sandwich in a weird shortening based ganache kind of thing that I didn't really want anything to do with. So I took a page from the Chipwich book and rolled it in nuts and chocolate instead.

I like the contrast of the salty peanuts and sweet ice cream, but if you aren't into sweet and salty you could always use unsalted nuts or just chocolate chips. Here's what you do.

First you need to prep your nuts. I have this awesome mini food processor that attaches to my wand mixer. It's a great little attachment. Please ignore my kung fu grip claw hand. I put some nuts in there, put the top on, attached the mixer base and whirred it around a bit. Got chopped nuts. You could also just use a knife or regular food processor if you wanted. Then I just put a line of that on a paper plate with some chocolate chips. Now take some softened ice cream, soft enough to spread, and plop it onto a cookie. This is why those cookies were so big, regular cookie sized ice cream sandwiches would have been pretty weak. Top it with another cookie and give it a gentle squeeze. You don't want a lot of ice cream coming out, but you do want a little to peek over the edges. That's how you get the stuff to stick. Now roll it in nuts and chocolate. I wound up pushing some of the nut/chocolate mix on by hand, just to make sure I had a good coating. Then back in the freezer to harden up. And that's it folks, homemade ice cream sandwiches. Good frigging times. It's a good one to get kids involved in. If they aren't wicked excited about making their own ice cream sandwiches, prick them with a needle and make sure they bleed. They're probably robots.*

*Disclaimer: Don't really prick your kids with needles, the authorities frown on that. They might be robots too...