Poached Chicken and Spring Onion Salad

With Summer ending I'm in a mad rush to make all the 'Summer' dishes before we just don't feel like eating salads and cold shakes in the middle of a cool day. Today we went out for lunch and I had Beef Bourguignon with Parmesan Mash and sautaed Red Cabbage. Totally hit the spot. But today is overcast and cool. Last Friday wasn't. It was a lovely warm day. So I made salad.

A few months ago I'd never poached chicken, but now having done it a few times I can see how wonderful and easy it is. And so healthy! This recipe is lovely and light, including poached spring onions (in stock before poaching the chicken), celery that's thinly peeled with a vegetable peeler, butter lettuce (I didn't have any and used Iceberg instead. Had a lovely crunch that the salad might have otherwise missed), poached chicken and a lovely light citirusy lemon infused oil dressing.

In all honesty, I stuffed the dressing having made it first and set aside as the recipe suggests then just before serving I thought I'd heat it through again so it's nice and warm and absorbs into the chicken. Bad move. Burnt the lemon rind and I had to 'wash' it off the chicken in the warm stock. Oh well. I improvised and made a lemon juice and olive oil whisked dressing which worked just as well.

As we were having this dish for dinner I added a poached egg to the top to make it a little more filling. This is HUGE for me as I don't generally eat eggs on their own at all. But I felt it needed a little more and the egg worked really nicely. Not that I'm converted to eating crap loads of eggs now. Just one a blue moon I can probably handle.

Was a lovely light meal and would make a fantastic entree!