Chicken and Celery Salad

This is another recipe from Everyday Harumi that blew my mind with how AMAZINGLY TASTY is was! I loved the contrast of the crispy celery with the chicken, and the flavors are fantastic together! The tangy, mayonnaise dressing with the garlic-soy sauce marinate for the chicken, topped with some fresh black pepper. Mmm. I am salivating just thinking about it.

Also, the marinate was so tasty you could use it for all sorts of other recipes, too.

And so I give you...
Chicken and Celery Salad
serves 4

300g celery (Or more. I think the celery-dressing ratio was a bit low)
300g skinless chicken breasts or mini fillets
1/2 tsp grated garlic
1-2 Tbsp light soy sauce (usukuchi)
1/2 Tbsp sunflower or vegetable oil (optional)

For the dressing
100g mayonnaise (Japanese Kyupi if you can get it)
1 Tbsp chicken stock
1-2 Tbsp white wine (I sub`d vinegar and sugar. (actually I didn't have regular vinegar so I sub`d rice vinegar and sugar... lol))
Light soy sauce - to taste
Wasabi - to taste (I hate wasabi so I didn't use any)
Salt and pepper - to season
pepper- to serve

1. Remove any stringy parts of the celery (I actually didn`t do this. Partially because I didn`t have a lot of celery. Partially because I am lazy. And partially because I actually like the stringy parts of the celery). Chop into 5cm-long strips and put into iced water for a couple of minutes to crisp, then drain.
(I cut the celery into 5-cm-long pieces and then cut those poses long-wise to make think splinters. That`s what it looked like in the pictures.)

2. Remove any gristle from the chicken then season by mixing the garlic with the light soy sauce and marinate for 5-6 minutes.

3. Cook the chicken in a non-stick pan until just cooked through. If using a regulat frying pan, use a little oil when cooking the chicken

4. When cool, shred the chicken into thin strips by hand and mix with the celery (When she says by hand, I think she literally means by hand. I tried shredding it with two forks and it was tough and took ages. Then I just grabbed it and started tearing it up and it worked great haha)

5. To make the dressing: mix the mayonnaise with the chicken stock and white wine then add the light soy sauce and wasabi, according to personal taste, and finally season with salt and pepper.

6. Dress the chicken and celery and put in a serving dish. Sprinkle pepper on top and serve. Please take care with the presentation of this salad, fluffing it up as much as possible.

And there it is. Super-duper-fantastic tasty.  I did the order a little differently; I cooked the chicken first, and then did the celery while it cooled, and soaked the celery in the ice water while I shredded the chicken and made the dressing.

Anyway, hope you enjoy it! And srsly, check out her book. So many good recipes in there!

Ciao!