Recipe(tried): Ensalada de Pollo Cubana... Cuban Chicken Salad

Hello Gladys,

So very nice to see you back at TKL...I hope that very soon you will enchant us with some of those delightful stories that go with your wonderful menus. I miss them terribly as they transported me to your beautiful island of Puerto Rico.

Cuban Chicken Salad was one of the first recipes my Mom taught me at home when I was about 14 or 15. She told me that this recipe would be a necessary one in my collection as it is served at all types of family gatherings.

This salad is beautifully arranged in a large glass serving bowl lined with greens. The perimeter of the salad is outlined with chopped hard-boiled eggs and from the center you decorate it with asparagus spears radiating out. In the center, you mound some chopped sweet pimientos. Tiny petit-pois are sprinkled in the sections marked off by the asparagus. This is the "piece de resistance" on a buffeat table and everybody raves about it. It is divine served with crackers.

Here is the recipe:

Cuban Chicken Salad
serves 8

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, pouched gently in water with half an onion then chopped when cool enough to handle
3 medium sized celery stalks, chopped fine
2 Red Delicious apples, peeled, cored and finely chopped
2/3 cup mayonnaise
2 medium size potatoes, peeled and cubed, boiled til tender
4 large eggs, hard-boiled and chopped
1 cup LeSueur petit pois
1 cup chopped asparagus tips
1/2 cup chopped sweet pimientos
salt and pepper to taste
2 sweet pimientos cut into strips for garnish
canned long asparagus spears for garnish

In a large bowl, combine the chicken, celery, apples, mayonnaise, pottaoes, half of the eggs, 1 cup of peas, asparagus tips and chopped pimientos. Toss gently to blend and season with salt and pepper.

Line a beautiful glass bowl with lettuce leaves and mound the salad on them. Smooth the top for the garnish. Garnish the perimeter with a sprinkling of hard-boiled eggs, the pimientos in the middle, asparagus spears radiating outward from the middle and the remaining or more petit pois in the sections marked off by the asparagus spears. Refrigerate before serving.