Summer is over in Perth but we are still having beautiful sunny days that lend themselves to outdooor lunches with friends and that is exactly what we did last week, with our wonderful friends, Deb and Gail. 

This is a simple, light salad that won’t weigh you down for the rest of the day.

The spice mixture for the chicken is Madhur Jaffrey’s Murgh ke mazedar tukray from her small cookbook, Quick & Easy Indian Cookery.  It is a gem of a book.  We have tried a lot of the recipes from it.

Ingredients

These quantities serve 4.

Chicken

• 2 boneless skinned chicken breasts, cut into cubes
• 1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
• ¼ tsp ground turmeric
• ¼ tsp chilli powder
• 1 tsp ground cummin
• 1 tsp dried thyme
•  ¼ tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp paprika
• ¾ tsp salt
• 1 tbs vegetable oil plus about 4 tbs oil for cooking chicken

Yoghurt Dressing

• ½ cup natural yoghurt
• juice of one lime or half a lemon
• pinch of sugar
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp cummin

Salad

• 4 Roma tomatoes, cubed
• 2 Lebanese cucumbers, cubed
• 1 avocado, cubed
• ½ salad onion, cubed
• ½ cup of chopped coriander
• 4 handfuls of mixed salad greens
• French salad dressing (hand made or commercial)

1. Mix all the spices in a small bowl with 1tbs of the vegetable oil.
2. Put chicken in another bowl and rub with the spice mixture.  Set aside until needed (this can be done as early in the day as you like).
3. Heat 1 tbs of oil in wok and cook ¼ of the chicken. Repeat until all chicken is cooked.  Set aside.
4. Place a handful of salad greens on each plate.
5. Distribute cucumber, onion, tomato and avocado onto each plate.
6. Drizzle a little French dressing over the salad.
7. Drizzle the yoghurt dressing over the salad.
8. Top salad with chicken bits.
9. Sprinkle generously with chopped coriander.