Every bite of food should be a sweet bite
Today I was craving shrimp. Specifically shrimp scampi – lots of garlic, lots of lemon, and crusty bread to soak all of that scampi sauce in.
So when I was at the supermarket, hunting down for the star of the dish, I was disappointed when I notice that the only thing they had were farm raised shrimp.
“Well, Monica, are we picky much?” You probably thinking… right?
When it comes to seafood - Yes I am.
Or more like a cheating Bagelwich. I could call it an egg sandwich, but the inspiration comes from a bagel.
When I lived in Miami, there was this little café close to work, which delivered pretty much 70% of the breakfast for the office staff.
The office is located off an island right passed the downtown area, and once you drove over the bridge, the lazy would sit in and there was no way anyone would ever contemplate leaving or you would be stuck in traffic never to be able to return.
In fact any restaurant that had delivery was very popular on our kitchen “take out menu” board. The motto was “let them come to us, and not us to them”.
But, back to the café…
This chicken salad has been in the making for quite a few years now. When I worked in downtown Miami, many years ago, our offices use to order most of our catering with Perricone’s Marketplace & Café.
And my favorite sandwich in the menu was their World famous Chicken Salad. Their version is prepared with golden raisins, roasted pine nuts, granny smith apples, basil, poached chicken breast and a touch of mayo.
When I moved away, I always missed the sandwich and so, there was nothing to do but try to duplicate it.
And as cooks we know that unless you know the actual recipe, duplications may work against you or for you.
In this case, Perricone’s recipe was a jumping point for my own world famous chicken salad.