Chinese Chicken Salad

This Chinese chicken salad is a nice change of pace and a good way to use left over chicken.  The deep fried rice vermicelli and toasted almonds add crunch to the salad.
Chinese Chicken Salad
  • 2 meaty chicken breasts, cooked and shredded
  • 1 head iceberg lettuce
  • 5 green onions
  • 3 tbsp. sliced almonds, toasted
  • 1/4 cup cilantro, coarsely chopped
  • 1 Tbs. toasted sesame seeds
  • 1/4 package rice vermicelli
    Dressing
  • 1/8 c. sesame oil
  • 1/8 c. salad oil (canola, corn or other light oil)
  • 2 tbsp. sugar
  • 3 tbsp. rice vinegar
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1/8 tsp. pepper

Roast or poach the chicken breasts and allow to cool. Tear apart the meat with your fingers or cut into small pieces.

Cut the lettuce into 1/4 inch strips.  If the strips are too long to eat gracefully, cut them into two or three pieces.

Slice the green onion (the green and white part, on the diagonal for a true Japanese cut); toast the sliced almonds; clean, pick and chop the cilantro; and toast the sesame seeds until they turn golden brown and start popping (you can do them together with the almonds if you want).

Deep fry the rice vermicelli. Use a small saucepan to use less oil but make more batches, or use a large saucepan to make fewer batches but use a lot more oil . Heat the oil; throw in a few noodles to test the temperature, the noodle should puff up immediately.  Break up the noodles and put in a little bunch at a time because they puff up to more than five times their size.

Combine all ingredients for the dressing in a bottle that you can shake well.

Just before serving, mix the dressing with the salad ingredients, then fold in the rice noodles carefully.  If you pour the dressing on the noodles, they will get soggy right away.

Rice Vermicelli are thin, brittle noodles that look like white hair and are sold in large bundles. When dropped into oil that is heated just to the point of smoking they puff up immediately to five times their size. Be sure to use enough oil so that the noodles will be completely submerged even after puffing.