Chinese Chicken Salad

Many, many, many years ago, I used to frequent an Asian restaurant in California.  I almost always ordered this salad.  I just love it.  When they served it, it's only ingredients were lettuce, rice noodles, chicken, and dressing.

It took me years to find a dressing recipe, back then we didn't have the internet!  But I did find one which tastes exactly like what I ate at least once a week for a couple of years.  Now through the years, I've tried to update this extraordinary salad with just a few more simple ingredients: minced ginger, green onions, and chopped peanuts.  With or without these additions, this is an amazing salad. 

A few notes about the rice noodles.  The package I bought was, I think, a 6.25 oz package.  I used half of this for my recipe.  But when breaking up the noodles, take it outside!!!!  The noodles just fly all over the place!  I used to use a deep skillet with several inches of oil to cook the noodles, but now I use a Fry Daddy, again, outside!  Even with one of those screens you put over frying pans, you'll still get a few grease spatters, so it's just so much easier to do this outside.  And speaking of frying and oil, don't let that scare you.  These noodles use very little oil to cook and you'll drain them on paper towels after cooking, so it's not like eating a bunch of oil-drenched french fries.  And one last thing.  They're just so much fun to cook!  You'll want to make sure your oil is hot enough and deep enough, but throw in a small batch (I say SMALL) and watch them poof up to about 5 times their size.  Whoosh!!!!

Use any kind of leftover chicken you have....grilled, rotisserie, roasted.  And you must, must I say, use iceberg lettuce.  Nothing else shreds like it (in fact, I just bought a package of the "Shreds" iceberg lettuce) or has the crunch.  Outside of being a bit messy to make, this is one fast salad, especially if you make the dressing ahead of time and use the packaged shredded salad.  You can have this on the table in minutes.  I will probably add some diced red pepper next time to just add a bit more color.

CHINESE CHICKEN SALAD  (Serves 2)

about 3 oz uncooked rice noodles
about 8 oz shredded iceberg lettuce
about 1 cup cubed or shredded cooked chicken
about 1/4 cup coarsely chopped dry-salted peanuts
2-3 green onions, chopped, green and white parts
1/2 red pepper, diced (optional)

Dressing:
1/4 cup canola oil
1 Tbsp sesame oil
3 Tbsp rice vinegar
2 tsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp dry mustard
1/2+ tsp minced fresh ginger

Mix all dresssing ingredients in a bowl and whisk until combined.

Heat oil in a deep frying pan or a fry daddy.  In very small batches, drop dried rice noodles into oil until poofed up.  Drain on a paper towel lined dish.

In a very large mixing bowl, add shredded lettuce, chicken, green onions, and peanuts.  Add cooked noodles.  (I say very large because there will be a lot of bulk, but when the dressing is added, it will shrink down considerably).  When ready to serve, toss with dressing (I only used just a bit more than half).  I never serve anything else with this.  For me, this is one perfect complete meal.  Nothing else needed.