Brazilian Chicken Salad (Salpicao)

Posted on Feb 17th, 2014

by Andre

Categories:

This week we thought we would do something healthy like a salad… Just kidding, even our salads contain meat.

As usual, this dish (Salpicao) is very popular in Brazil, loved across the country, I do adapt my recipe, just to lighten the dish a little, as it contains mayonnaise. Served as an accompaniment to a main, but it could actually be the main course, it’s tasty, fresh and feeling.

Brazilian Chicken Salad (Salpicao)

2015-01-22 22:31:23

Serves 5

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Ingredients

1 tin Palm Hearts (optional and hard to find in the UK, found it at Morrisons and Waitrose, see pictures)
1 cup of Peas
1 cup of corn
1 or 2 grated carrots
3 - 4 chicken breasts
4 large potatoes
1 cup of raisins
2 celery stalks
1 large apple
3 Tbs of Mayo
3 - 4 Tbs natural Yogurt
1 Lime / Lemon
1 Garlic clove
1 lt of chicken stock
Salt, black pepper

Instructions

First thing, Get your Chicken Fillets cooking, just add some olive oil to a pan on high heat, Add the chicken breasts whole, just quickly fry them, with the back of the knife crush the garlic clove, skin and all and add it to the pan.
Add 1 litre of chicken stock. cook for 40 min on normal pan, or 20 min on pressure cooker :-).
While that cooks, get on with the rest of the dish, try to finely chop ingredients.
To a large bawl add, chopped celery, grated celery, corn, peas, chopped palm hearts, raisins, finely chopped apple set it aside
Now this next step takes a bit of work, but its worth, although in Brazil people would by this already made...I had to do mine.
Ether grate or cut the potatoes very fine, sort of like, very fine chips (crisps, depending where you are in the world), get it all chopped and add to another bawl of water, just to keep the potatoes from oxidizing.
Mean while the chicken should be cooked and tender, remove it from stock (keep stock for soups) , shred the chicken using 2 forks or hands... once shred add it to the bawl with the other ingredients, mix it well.
I find it easier to prepare the sauce on a different bawl, Add 3 Tbs of Mayonnaise to the bawl, add a further 3 - 4 Tbs of Yogurt, add the juice of a lime or lemon, add a splash of olive oil, salt and black pepper to taste, always taste the sauce, see if it needs any more seasoning. if too thick add a little splash of water to thin it down.
Pour the sauce over the salad and mix it thoroughly.
Now its time to cook the Straw like chips, it gives the Salpicao a crunchy texture.
Heat up some oil to about 160 C, and through a hand full of potatoes in, it will take around 5 minutes to cook, but do keep an eye, as they can burn quickly. Once cooked place it on some kitchen towel just to absorb excess oil. they should be golden and crunchy.
get the salad onto your favourite serving dish, place the crunchy chips on top of salad.
Enjoy it