Turkish Chicken Salad with Home-made Cacik Yogurt Sauce

Ingredients

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

For the Salsa:

2 tomatoes

1 cucumber

1 small red onion

Handful chopped parsley

Juice of 1 lemon

Salt and pepper

For the Salad:

1 whole roast chicken

I large head green gem lettuce

1/4 red cabbage, thinly sliced

1 carrot, grated

2 large pickled cucumbers / gherkins, sliced

2 – 2 large Jalapeno peppers

For the Cacik:

250ml plain Turkish or Greek-style yoghurt

1 small lebanese cucumber (or 1/3 of a large one)

1/2 clove garlic, finely chopped and mashed to a paste

Lemon juice

Salt & pepper

Olive oil

Preparation

METHOD:

1. First prepare the Cacik: For the Cacik: Chop the cucumber into tiny pieces, as small as you can, and place in a bowl. Cover the cucumber with salt and set aside for 30 minutes. The cucumbers will start to exude their juices which will flavour the yogurt nicely.

2. Put a griddle pan on medium – high heat, cover the peppers with olive oil and start to char.

3. Cut the tomato and cucumber into medium pieces. Slice the red onion as thin as you can. Chop the parsley fine. Place all ingredients in a bowl and cover with a the juice of 1 lemon. Season with salt and pepper. Let it sit in the fridge for 30 minutes – 1 hour, stirring a couple times, so it starts to exude juice.

4. Tear the lettuce into mouth-siazed peices. Cut the red cabbage into thin slices. Grate the carrot. Mix together in a bowl.

5. Tear the chicken into large pieces and add to the salad.

6. Remove the tomato salsa from the fridge. Drain the juice and keep for later. Now add the tomato, cucumber, parsley onion mix to the chicken salad, as well as the sliced gherkin.

7. Lay out the salad on a large plate or chopping board. Serve with the charred peppers, cacik, salsa vinaigrette and some chilli sauce.