Curried Chicken Avocado and Celery Salad

Since I have been very free in Houston, my favourite pass time is watching cooking shows to get some inspiration for dinner. Besides watching Chinese cooking shows (cos my husband still likes to eat chinese food), foodnetwork is also one of my favourite channel. I like to watch Barefoot Contessa. Her recipes are simple and the dishes featured are flavourful. When I saw Ina Garten's Curried Chicken Salad , I decided to give it a try cos it looks so yummy! This Curried Chicken Avocado and Celery Salad is adapted from her Curried Chicken Salad. Her recipe does not have avocado and mine does not have chutney raisins and nuts. This is because I don't want to buy chutney raisins and nuts just for this salad and avocado is good for health.

Let me side track a bit here. Since I have been told by the doctor here that I have high cholesterol and high blood sugar I should watch my diet. I have been slowly adjusting my diet. I started to eat chicken breast which I have never liked as I find it too tough after being cooked. Than after searching the net, I get to know that eating celery is good in reducing cholesterol and eating avocado is good for the heart cos it has both monosaturated and polyunsaturated fat and contain potassium. Therefore these 2 I have decided to add in these 2 items in my version of the curried chicken salad.

I really love this salad ! The chicken breast turn out to be tender! The secret to the tenderness is using chicken breast with bone-in skin-on. This trick is taught by Ina. The salad is rich in flavour and most of the ingredients are good for health too. Do give it a try! PS: If you don't have time to bake your own chicken, just buy it. Or you can use your left over chicken from your previous meal.

Ingredients:

1) 2 medium chicken breast bone-in skin-on

2) 1 avocado cut into cubes

3) 2 stalks of celery cut into medium dices

4) 2 small shallots (if you like shallots can add more) cut into small dices

5) 2 chopped spring onions

6) Olive oil

7) 1 cup Olive oil mayo (normal mayo will do too. Olive mayo is more healthy )

8) 3 tablespoons of curry powder

9) Salt to taste

Directions:

A) Preparation of baked chicken breast

1) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F or near to 175 degree C.

2) Place the chicken breasts on a sheet pan and rub the skin with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. You can sprinkle salt and pepper on the meat under the skin if you are afraid that the seasoning does not get into the meat. If you want it to be more flavourful you can also add some roast chicken seasoning which you can get in the supermarket.

3) Roast for 35 to 40 minutes, until the chicken is just cooked. Wrap the chicken with aluminum foil so that the juices of the chicken will get back into the meat. Set aside until cool enough to handle. Remove the meat from the bones, discard the skin, and dice the chicken into large bite-size pieces.

B) Preparation of the dressing

1) Combine the olive oil mayo, curry powder and salt. If you find it too thick you can add in some olive oil.

C) Putting the salad together

1) Combine the chicken with enough dressing to moisten well. Add the celery, scallions, onion,spring onion and avocado, and mix well. Refrigerate for a few hours to allow the flavors to blend. Serve at room temperature. You can add in a dash of black pepper if you want.