Salad with Spicy Grilled Chicken

All right. I’ve let things slide. Nearly three weeks without a post, or perhaps even a full three. Disgraceful. Completely. But I’m back. I won’t promise to post regularly, because so much is happening that I don’t even know…

So today, fantastic chicken, spicy and grilled. On my electric grill, admittedly, but marinated so well it’s outrageous. That good.

Last time, though, I wrote about a restaurant in Konstancin, and above all its rather original service. So I wouldn’t be myself today if I didn’t write about what happened to us yesterday. We went to our, I think I can say, rather favourite Gessler’s. No, not Magda from my favourite, perhaps only TV programme I watch apart from football matches. That other Gessler, Mateusz, aka Warszawa Wschodnia at Soho Factory. And while up until now we couldn’t have had the slightest complaint about the service, yesterday was such a huge failure… Oh, SO HUGE.

Imagine waiting about 40 minutes for a second bottle of wine. But the best part started when we ordered our second meal. A word of explanation here. We go to Gessler’s late in the evening, if not at night. Because it’s practically the only decent restaurant in Warsaw where you can eat non-stop. Around the clock, that is. We start our get-togethers with a meal, then drink plenty of wine. And then… Well, then we carry on eating and drinking wine. On cold days, around midnight we move from the restaurant section to the 24-hour kitchen and eat there.

Yesterday was supposed to be similar, but we sat outside. In that weather, sitting indoors wouldn’t have made the slightest sense. And we were spectacularly disappointed. Around the 3rd hour of our feast, I ordered steak tartare and my dining companion Jacek ordered steak haché. And we waited. Waited.

Waited.

And nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Since we’d already ordered our third wine, we asked the master of drinks (our favourite, who had finally noticed us, thankfully, so at least the wine problem was over) what was happening with our food. There were 2 cooks in the 24-hour kitchen and perhaps 5 (in words: five) people sitting there. We could see that nothing was happening for us, because the cooks were more interested in admiring those five people (well, perhaps really 2, since three of them were men). He rushed over, and suddenly something started happening.

Only thanks to that intervention did we get our grub, but we decided to call it an evening (sic!). Disappointed and not nearly as tipsy as we usually get on our visits there. And that’s probably why Jacek’s head hurt until noon today. I simply slept until twelve. Well, above all, today I opted for my own kitchen. A primitive one. So I recommend grilled chicken. Very spicy (but not Chinese-level hardcore). Perfect with a selection of salad leaves. Fresh, crisp. And those sweet little tomatoes 😉 So I’m back. Let us all rejoice 🙂

Recipe at a glance:

Preparation time: 20 – 25 minutes

Serves: 1 person

Calories: the last recipe for lasagne is from three weeks ago, so spread over that long, not many

Ingredients for an outstanding chicken salad:

Chicken marinade

• two large chicken breasts (mine weighed 450 grams, almost half a kilo; of course half went into the salad, and the rest stays for tomorrow or can make a second portion)
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon dried herbes de Provence
• 1.5 teaspoons harissa paste (a paste made from hot chillies)
• 1 level teaspoon salt
• 1 level teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Remaining salad ingredients (this part is a portion for 1 person)

• 1 pink tomato (medium-sized)
• half a yellow pepper
• 16 strawberry tomatoes
• 6 romaine lettuce leaves
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• a pinch of salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• dried herbes de Provence

Recipe for spicy chicken served on romaine lettuce:

Most importantly, prepare the chicken the day before. I washed the breasts thoroughly, dried them with paper towel and removed any little bones and all the membranes. I cut them into pieces 3 – 4 cm thick (they can be longer; you can see what they looked like on the grill) and put them in a bowl. I added all the marinade ingredients (in this order: salt, freshly ground black pepper, herbes de Provence, harissa, olive oil and finally lemon juice). I mixed everything thoroughly with the chicken pieces (so each piece of breast was coated in marinade), sealed the container tightly and put it in the fridge for 20 hours.

Now for making the salad itself. I heated the grill to its maximum setting (mine is electric, but you can use an ordinary charcoal grill too) and laid out the chicken pieces taken from the fridge (as you know, after 20 hours of bed rest in the marinade ;). Every 4 minutes I turned them over and pressed them lightly against the grill. Grill the chicken for about 20 minutes so it doesn’t dry out completely (it’ll be lovely and juicy), but isn’t raw either. Raw chicken is the worst.

I washed the salad ingredients thoroughly. I tore the romaine leaves into small pieces and lined a plate with them. On top I put the yellow pepper cut into strips, the pink tomato cut into quarters and the halved strawberry tomatoes.

Then I made the vinaigrette. I put a tablespoon of olive oil, some dried herbes de Provence, a pinch of salt, freshly ground black pepper and 2 teaspoons of lemon juice into a glass. I mixed it thoroughly and left it for a few minutes to let the flavours mingle.

I poured the vinaigrette over the lettuce, pepper and tomatoes, then topped it with the spicy grilled chicken pieces (chicken breast, to be precise). Done. It tastes fabulous. Especially with chicken like this. Enjoy!