Smoked Chicken Summer Salad

Salad is for sure summer food. In most parts of the world vegetables are best in the summer. In Canada and in Sweden vegetables are only available in the summer unless you import them from another country. Martina was working a bit later yesterday so I wanted to make something summery for her when she came home. I decided to do a salad and summer it up with strawberries. This is a very easy salad to do and it takes no time at all really. Please proceed to the recipe:

Smoked Chicken Summer Salad 2 persons
200 g Smoked chicken
150 g Mâche salad, but you can use any baby greens
100-200 g Strawberries
50 g Sundried tomatoes
50 g Cherry tomatoes
1//2 Baguette
Dried herbs (any you like)
1/2 Yellow onion

First, find a big bowl and put all of the Mache salad into the bowl.Second, slice the smoked chicken into thin slices, about 3 millimeters, unless you bought is sliced. Now put them into the bowl as well.
Third, slice each strawberry into 4 pieces. Not to thin, otherwise there will be no strawberry texture when chewing them. Put them in the bowl.
Fourth, slice the sundried tomatoes into thin long slices and put them in the bowl.
Fifth, chop the onion in very small pieces. The onion should not give any texture, only a flavour that works in the background in the salad. Put the onion in the bowl too.
Sixth, it is time to do some croutons!

Slice the bread in pieces that have the size 1.5*1.5*1.5 cm or any size you like, we all have different taste. Put them in a pan and pour some olive oil on. Start the heating under the pan so the pan gets hot. Just make sure it gets hot enough for the bread to get that nice golden color. Spice it with the dried herbs and salt. The more salt the more the crutons will taste. Now, you will see that the bread will suck all the olive oil up pretty fast which means that you have to add more. It is fantastic how much oil, bread actually can absorb. Stir the bread in the pan so it does not get black from the burning. Taste the croutons in the meanwhile and add more herbs and salt until you have got the taste you like. The croutons are done when they are crunchy. Now put them in the salad and mix the whole thing. Be careful though, so you do not damage the strawberries.

Dressing
6 part olive oil
2 part balsamico vinegear
dried herbs, we used herbes de provence
1 part honey
salt and pepper

Mix all above and drip it over the salad. You should keep the freshness and crunchiness of the salad so do not drip too much of the dressing into it.

I would recommend a white wine that is semi sweet. When you want to match wine to food you should think of this. If the food is sweet, then drink a wine that is sweet. If the food is spicy, then drink a wine that is spicy. If the food is rich with texture and flavour, then drink a wine that is rich with flavour which is most often red wines. The reason for this is that you should drink wine that enhances the flavours of the food. If you drink a dry almost bitter wine to something that is sweet then the wine will subtract from the taste instead of enhancing the taste.

Enjoy a healthy and tasty summer salad.

Bye.
Tack!
Andreas & Martina