Chicken Lime Salad

A visually appealing main course salad that came from travelling in Bali, this is light eating at its best: loads of different flavours and textures splashed on the canvas of a nice large white plate. Rujak is an Indonesian sweet and sour sauce that has a trillion uses, so it’s worth making and freezing some. In Indonesia it’s traditionally served as a starter, poured over a salad of tropical fruits in a bowl – and its marriage with fruit works just as well here...

Ingredients

Chicken

• 4 chicken breasts, cubed
• 4 limes, juiced and zest grated
• 4 kaffir lime leaves, cut into strips
• 1 large red chilli, deseeded and cut into strips
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp runny honey
• 2 tbsp white wine
  
• 2 tsp cornflour
  

Garnish

• 4 tbsp Rujak
• 1 papaya, diced
• 1/2 pineapple, diced
• 1 cucumber diced
• 50g peanuts, chopped roughly
  

Salad

• 4 iceberg lettuce leaves, cut into strips
• 200g mange tout or sugar snaps, blanched and cooled
• 200g broccoli florets, blanched and cooled
• 4 spring onions, cut diagonally
• A handful of sweet basil leaves

For the chicken, mix the lime, kaffir lime, chilli, soy sauce and honey together in a bowl and add the chicken to marinate for an hour or so. Meanwhile make the rujak and prepare the garnish and salad base ingredients. Remove and drain the chicken and stir-fry it in a little sunflower oil. Mix the cornflour into the marinade ingredients and, when the chicken has whitened, add these to the pan. Stir in to thicken and finish, then remove from the heat but leave in the pan, covered, to cool.

Assemble a pile of the various green salad ingredients in the centre of each plate, and then scatter the mixed garnish fruits around the outside. Scatter the chicken over the green salad and drizzle the rujak sauce around the fruit on the plate. Toss the crushed peanuts over the top and serve with vast amounts of chilled white wine. Try a Mont Gras Voigner...