I have a fun idea for you, if you’re willing to play along. Here is how it works. The next time you’re going to a backyard barbecue, planning a picnic, or having friends over for dinner on the deck, make it known that you will be bringing/serving chicken salad. This will trigger everyone’s food anticipation. Some will imagine the chicken salad of their youth, some their favorite of the multiple varieties sold in the prepared food department at their local gourmet market.

 

No one, however, will expect what you’re making: Saffron Chicken & Herb Salad.

 

This recipe, from Jerusalem: A Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi, defies the usual “chicken salad” categorization. (To see a video of the authors making the salad, click here.) Mayonnaise, the omni-binder that is usually present whenever the words chicken and salad are said in one breath, is missing. In its place is a smooth, thin paste make of a whole orange, with skin and all, that’s been simmered with honey, saffron, and vinegar.

 

Balancing the slight sweetness of the binder are thin slices of red hot chili pepper and raw fennel bulbs, a healthy amount of fresh squeezed lemon juice, and lots of fresh herbs, listed here in descending order of quantity used: cilantro, basil, and mint.

 

It was my friends (and DCCC members) Wendy and Erich’s idea to bring this Jerusalem-inspired chicken salad to our front porch get-together. To go with it, I made mejadra, a rustic all-in-one lentil and rice dish that is topped with copious amounts of crispy, fried onions; an accompaniment of yogurt with cucumber, a creamy side dish-cum-condiment made with mint, garlic, lemon juice, and a touch of cayenne pepper; and a tahini-forward treatment of Swiss chard topped with buttered pine nuts. (For the mejadra recipe, click here, here, and/or here.)

 

When all of the dishes were set on the table, the diversity of Ottolenghi and Tamimi’s recipes was in plain sight: the brilliant yellow-orange and citrusy flavor of the chicken salad, the umber tones and earthy taste of the mejadra, the cool white to faint cucumber green of the yogurt accompaniment, the saturated forest green of the pleasantly bitter chard.

 

Though all the food was good, it was the not-to-be-pigeon-holed chicken salad that stood out. Its enticing heat and intriguing mix of flavors kept us taking just one more mouthful. And then another. And another.