Chinese Chicken Salad

The recipe for this salad comes to us from Saveur Magazine.  Michael and I have long been Saveur fans and we've occasionally been subscribers.  It isn't the kind of stuck up snobby magazine you might think from the name.  I think the essence of Saveur is authenticity and not the sort of authenticity that has you searching high and low for black truffles or dried shark fins, but more a celebration of what real people do eat all over the world.  Foods born out of tradition, foods in season, and foods that make the most of what is available in any given region are what Saveur is about.  For instance, this isn't exactly a "Chinese" salad, but it was born out of the Californian impulse to make a salad into a meal as well as the Californian willingness to fuse together any number of Asian and Western foodways and make something gloriously fresh and new.  This salad comes from the recent L.A. edition, which I've already torn through and enjoyed thoroughly.

The dressing (pictured here) is absolutely terrific.  Never in a million years would I have put both dried mustard and peanut butter in the same salad dressing, but it really works.  There's a nice wasabi-like burn from the mustard and the dominant flavors of the dressing have me thinking of a mild Thai peanut sauce.  As you can see, this starts out as a sort of "composed" salad, but you gotta make it messy to get all the dressing mixed around.  So good.