Wild Rice Chicken Salad
There’s a lot of coronation chicken salad around lately and for the right reason. It’s the most appropriately timed thing you can make right now. No one has been able to say that in this country since 1953. How exciting!
Except. I don’t like coronation chicken salad. I know it has a sentimental place in the hearts of many people here but there’s just something about it that doesn’t get me excited. Unfortunately, I also don’t like quiche, which is the King’s suggestion for a new coronation favorite, so I find myself in a bit of a Coronation Weekend lunchtime bind. There are lots of opinions on the royal family and how necessary they are in our modern world but I will say they do pomp and ceremony better than anyone. The carriages! The spectacle! The uniforms! It’s all very rousing and is a good way to spend time with your neighbors.
It’s a historic and important national occasion that involves both bunting (fun!) and drinking out in the garden (splendid!) so I do want to find a way to participate. The drink is taken care of which leaves me with lunch and something sweet. I got to thinking about the wild rice chicken salad my mom made all the time when I was growing up and have decided it’s a good enough alternative for such a festive occasion as the crowning of a monarch.
This isn’t exactly the version from my childhood because that one was based fully on wild rice which is easy to find in Wisconsin. It is less easy to find here and is very expensive if you can find it. So I’ll start by saying if you want to splash out for the actual long grain wild rice it is glorious. Nutty, firm, it gives this salad something extra special which we are going to replicate with either a basmati/wild rice mix or red camargue rice. You want the rice to be more robust than your weeknight dinner white rice for this.
Also, the original featured ranch dressing because again, Wisconsin. The Midwestern fascination with that particular condiment is inexplicable but it defines my childhood. I don’t buy ranch dressing anymore so I modernized the idea of ranch and used fresh herbs instead of a package of dry mix. There is fruit and chicken and mayonnaise so I feel confident saying this salad could be considered a relation of coronation chicken. At least as reasonably as Americans can be considered relations of the British.
