I’ve never really understood what people mean by convenience foods.
Of course, I know the products those words refer to: packaged foods that you quickly prepare simply by adding water or heating. And I know that you can even get very creative with some of them.
That isn’t what I don’t understand, however. Instead, I wonder why so many home cooks rely largely on convenience foods for their home-cooked meals when, to me, so many basic ingredients are really convenient and simple.
Take fresh, in-season produce. I find it exceptionally convenient to rinse and cut up a selection of greens and other vegetables and toss them with a dressing that takes just moments to prepare, resulting in a great salad. Or vegetables can be sauteed in hot olive oil, maybe with a touch of chopped garlic or some hot red pepper flakes, to make the perfect side dish in a matter of minutes.
Another true convenience food is cooked, ready-to-eat rotisserie chicken. Rubbing a whole chicken with seasonings and then cooking it on a slowly turning spit is an excellent way to produce juicy, flavorful meat.
Those I’ve sampled deliver reliably good results, provided that you select one that seems to have finished cooking fairly recently, looking plump and juicy, with nicely browned skin.
Bring such a chicken home and you can serve it immediately to your family. Or, with very little extra effort, you can turn it into the perfect late-summer main course salad: Chinois chicken salad, a favorite at my restaurants.
A straight-from-the-market rotisserie chicken is perfect for such a salad, as the still-warm meat will soak up the flavors of the Asian-style dressing in a way that cold chicken, the usual staple for salads, cannot. The trick works with other dressings as well.
Add a few leaves and vegetables that you also picked up at the market (if you’re in a real hurry, you can even buy them already cut-up from the store’s salad bar), and you have a truly spectacular salad.
Now that’s what I call convenient.
Chinois chicken salad
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Yield: 6 main-course servings
Chinese mustard vinaigrette:
1/4 cup rice vinegar
2 tablespoons Asiansesame oil
2 teaspoons dry mustard
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground pepper
2 to 3 tablespoons peanut oil
Chicken salad:
2 small heads or 1 medium head napa cabbage
1 small head romaine or iceberg lettuce
1 whole cooked hot rotisserie chicken
10 snow peapods, cut diagonally into 1/4-inch strips
1 tablespoon black sesame seeds, or toasted white sesame seeds, see note
1. For the vinaigrette, combine the vinegar, sesame oil, dry mustard, soy sauce, salt and pepper to taste in a blender or a food processor; blend until smooth. With the machine running, drizzle in the peanut oil to form a thick, smooth dressing. Adjust the seasonings if necessary. Transfer the dressing to a bowl; set aside.
2. Select 6 nice-looking leaves from the napa cabbage; set aside. Cut the remaining napa cabbage leaves crosswise into 1/4-inch strips. Pull away the outer leaves of the romaine or iceberg lettuce to reveal the paler, tender heart; cut the lettuce heart crosswise into 1/4-inch strips until you have 1 cup. Remove the skin from the still-warm rotisserie chicken. Pull off meat from the breasts, thighs and drumsticks; tear the meat into bite-sized pieces into a large bowl.
3. Add shredded cabbage, shredded lettuce and snow peas; toss with enough of the vinaigrette to coat all the ingredients well. Arrange the reserved napa cabbage leaves around the edge of a large serving plate or platter, or on individual serving plates, and mound the salad mixture on top. Garnish with sesame seeds.
Note: Toast sesame seeds in a dry pan over low heat, stirring continuously until golden, about 1 minute.
Nutrition information per serving:
255 calories, 49% of calories from fat, 14 g fat, 2 g saturated fat, 77 mg cholesterol, 6 g carbohydrates, 26 g protein, 353 mg sodium, 2 g fiber
