I made this salad all week at Kaffeine and quite literally couldn't keep up, I'd make one platter and 2 minute's later it was gone!
Etienne has once again taken a wonderful picture of the salad in the making.
Please email me with a photo if you get adventurous and make this recipe, I'd really like to know how you got on. Happy cooking.
400g chicken breast
70g baby spinach
100g feta
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt and cracked pepper
DUMPLINGS:
250g stale white bread (crust removed)
70g grated mature cheddar
50g walnuts
50g black olives
1 banana shallot
25g butter
100ml milk
1 egg
4 large basil leaves
Sea salt and cracked pepper
PICKLED MELON RIND:
1 watermelon
150ml white wine vinegar
450ml water
100g sugar
2 tablespoon sea salt
1 orange
4 cloves garlic
8 peppercorns
2 bay leaves
1 red chilli
DRESSING:
The flesh of the watermelon left over from pickle rind
100ml red wine vinegar
1 red onion
4 cloves garlic
12 pepper corns
2 bay leaves
1 tablespoon salt
200g sugar
METHOD:
The first step is to pickle the melon rind, after you've peeled away the outer skin cut melon in quarters and slice away the outer rind and place in a large bowl with 1 tablespoon of salt and roughly mix together. In a large pot add the white wine vinegar, water, sugar, the other tablespoon of salt, whole orange sliced into 5 circles, garlic, peppercorns, bay leaves and place over a high heat and bring to the boil. Once the pickling juice is just bubbling away add the melon rind and cook for 15 minutes till the rind starts to go floppy. Remove from heat and transfer the rinds into sterilized jars and pour over the remaining liquid till covering the rinds then screw on the lids and leave to cool.
Next is the dressing cut the flesh of the melon into cubes and place in large pot, roughly crush the melon by either punching it or crush up in your hands (whatever works for you). Peel and quarter the onion, crush the garlic and add to pot with red wine vinegar, peppercorns, bay, whole chilli and salt and place over a high heat and bring to a simmer and reduce for 2 hours. The volume should have reduce by 3/4 then strain the liquid and throw away the sediment. Place the liquid back on a high heat bring to a simmer then add the sugar and cook for another 15-20 minutes till you have a syrupy consistency, the dressing is now ready.
Place the chicken in a baking tray and drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, fill the tray with water till the chicken is 3/4 covered then thightly wrap the baking tray with foil and place in oven set at 180oC for 20 minutes to cook. Once the chicken is cooked remove from oven and don't take off the foil as the chicken will keep on cooking.
To make the dumplings peel and dice the shallot, place a small fry pan over medium heat, melt the butter then add shallot and cook till the shallots softens and turns translucent, remove from heat. Break the bread up into smaller piece's and place in a large mixing bowl, roughly dice the walnuts, olives, basil and add to bread with cheese, onion, milk, egg, salt and pepper and mush the mixture together using your hands. Line a baking tray with parchment paper then fill a small bowl with water and dip your hands in then start rolling small dumplings with wet hands and lay out dumplings on baking tray. Once you've rolled all the mixture into dumpling place in oven set at 180oC for 12-15 minutes till they turn golden.
Now its time to construct the salad, lay out half the spinach leaves on a serving platter then break up half the feta over the leaves. Evenly place half the dumplings over the salad, slice some pickled melon rind and distribute over everything. Tear the chicken and lay over the salad and drizzle with a good amount of dressing then repeat the layer again and serve as soon as possible.
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