Chicken salad

My mom's chicken salad was very, very simple. Cut up chicken, celery, and mayonnaise. The recipe I use now is updated for Alan's and my taste. I loved my mom's chicken salad, and still do. I don't know where she got her recipe, but it tasted a lot like the chicken salad that was served at Wanamaker's tearoom.

I don't think I've ever written about the first time my father took me to the Tea Room. What a treat that was! Of course I had to go through the requisite blindness at 12th and Market Streets in downtown Philly before we arrived at Wanamaker's. He didn't tell me in advance that we were going there. We went to visit Dr. Feldman first, and I can't recall whether it was because he thought I need to get some sort of treatment (chiropractic) or whether the treatment was for him. But we went to the Tea Room and got there around 1:30 p.m., a little late for lunch, but we hadn't eaten yet, so that's where we went.

I ordered, at my father's suggestion, a chicken salad sandwich plate. Wow! The sandwich was delish! And that chicken salad was just like mom's, or vice versa. Anyway, there was no pickle relish in it, nothing to make it "sweet", just plain chicken, celery, and mayo.

But enough reminiscing, here's my updated recipe.

Items needed:

chicken breasts either bone in or no bone
salt
pepper
mayonnaise -- I use Hellmann's. If you use the other stuff, it will not be the same.
celery
grapes
walnuts

Cook the breasts in water -- do not completely cover the breasts unless you want to save the stock that results from boiling the meat. Cook in covered pan for 1/2 hour. Make sure the water in the pot has been boiling with the meat for at least 20 minutes. Add salt to the water.

After the breasts cool, cut them into small pieces.
Cut up the celery into small pieces (1 cup)
smash the walnuts into small pieces (1/2 cup)
cut the grapes (I use seedless purple grapes) into four pieces (tedious work, but it makes the salad less lumpy). (1 cup)

Combine all the above with enough mayonnaise to coat the ingredients. This will vary depending on how big the breasts are.

Chill for about one hour and eat. It tastes good left over as well. I often add a spritz of lemon into the salad, but then I put a spritz of lemon in almost everything.

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