Quick and easy to assemble – Chicken Mayonnaise with Rice Salad is perfect for a self-catering holiday meal, a summer lunch buffet, or supper at home.
Chicken Mayonnaise with Rice Salad
No apologies for this super-quick meal. Roast your chicken ahead of time or buy one ready-roasted if you’re short of time or on holiday.
This is one dish that was a staple of my mother’s summer lunch buffets. I realise now that she made it for the same reasons that I do: it’s easy to prepare, most of it can be done ahead of time, and it looks and tastes rather good – definitely rather more than the sum of its parts.
Chicken Mayonnaise is very similar to Coronation Chicken, and I like both, The beauty of this recipe is that you really don’t need much to make it. On holiday you could buy a couple of spit-roasted chickens and eat one hot and put the other in the fridge for Chicken Mayonnaise another day.
You can buy good-quality mayonnaise in most supermarkets. Homemade mayonnaise always tastes better – and you control what’s in it – but on holiday that’s not usually an option. A point to note is that if you’re making mayonnaise in hot weather, you may find it doesn’t thicken so much. One way to improve the texture is by using the eggs slightly cooler than usual, which will balance the warmer-than-usual oil.
This is one of those basic recipes to keep in your repertoire and make over and over again – and if there are only two of you, it will last for 2-3 meals.
Any left-over Chicken Mayonnaise can be used in sandwiches.
HELPFUL TOOLS
- Meat thermometer – These days I use my digital thermometer to cook all poultry – including the turkey. It tells me when the internal temperature is reached and having the screen outside the oven makes it easy to read
- Roasting bags – I buy a larger size than I need to make it easy. I wouldn’t use them for every roast, but when the chicken is being cut up like this they’re ideal. The oven stays clean and so does the roasting dish
Chicken Mayonnaise with Rice Salad
Ingredients
For the Chicken Mayonnaise:
- 1.5 kg chicken
- 300 g mayonnaise
- Fresh parsley to garnish
For the Rice Salad:
- 150 g brown rice
- 100 g frozen peas
- 100 g frozen sweetcorn
- Salt
Equipment
Instructions
PREPARATION:
- Set the oven to 220°C/200°C fan, gas mark 7/425°F
- Put the chicken in a roasting bag and cook for about 1 hour 30 minutes,
- You can tell it’s done when the juices run clear when pricked with a skewer OR
- The internal temperature is at least 75°C using a meat thermometer (although I prefer to leave mine to 85°C)
- OR Roast the chicken in your usual way
- Allow the chicken to cool in the bag
For the Rice Salad:
- Cook the rice in salted water according to the packet
- Five minutes before the end of the cooking time, add the peas and sweetcorn and bring back to the boil on HIGH. Turn back to a simmer for the remaining cooking time
- Drain, then run cold water through the rice to cool it. Leave to drain until required
- Refrigerate if leaving for longer than a few minutes
For the Chicken Mayonnaise:
- Strip the chicken meat from the bones - easiest done with your hands
- Tear the chicken into pieces that need cutting once or twice, putting aside any very small pieces to use in sandwiches later
- Mix the chicken in with the mayonnaise
- Arrange in a serving dish with the Rice Salad and garnish with chopped parsley.
