Chinese chicken salad facts for kids
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| Type | Salad |
|---|---|
| Place of origin | United States |
| Main ingredients | Chicken, Chinese noodles, lettuce, ginger, sesame oil |
Chinese chicken salad is a tasty salad that mixes chopped chicken with ingredients often found in Chinese cooking. It's very popular in some parts of the United States.
Many different versions of this salad exist. But they usually include lettuce, cabbage, and chicken (often breast meat). You'll also find crispy bits like deep-fried wonton skins or rice vermicelli noodles. Sometimes, nuts like sliced almonds, cashews, or peanuts are added too.
The dressing for this salad often has vegetable oil, sesame oil, and rice vinegar (or citrus juice). Other flavors can be added, such as dry hot mustard, sesame seeds, coriander, and fresh or pickled ginger. In restaurants, Chinese chicken salad can be a main dish, much like Caesar, Chef, or Cobb salads.
Contents
How Chinese Chicken Salad Started
The American Twist on Asian Flavors
The Chinese chicken salad we know today is not a traditional dish from China. Instead, it seems to be a mix of different Asian and Western cooking styles. It's often called a "fusion" dish. One reason for this idea is that green lettuce salads are mostly a Western invention.
Many cultures around the world have their own types of salads. But the Chinese chicken salad that became popular in the US likely started in California.
Hollywood's Favorite Salad
In the 1960s, this salad became very popular in Hollywood. A famous restaurant called Madame Wu's in Santa Monica helped make it well-known. The story goes that actor Cary Grant asked Madame Wu to add it to her menu. He had tried it at another restaurant and loved it.
Madame Wu, whose real name was Sylvia Cheng Wu, created her own version. She used shredded chicken, fried vermicelli noodles, green onions, and toasted almonds. Her Chinese chicken salad quickly became a classic American lunch item.
Salads Evolve in Cookbooks
Around the early 1900s, American cookbooks often featured simple chicken salad. This was usually a mix of chopped chicken and vegetables with mayonnaise, without lettuce. Over time, main course salads started to appear in cookbooks. By the 1950s, books like Better Homes & Gardens, New Cook Book included salads like Caesar salad. But Asian-style salads were still rare.
Later, cookbooks began to introduce more "exotic" flavors. For example, the Good Housekeeping Cookbook featured a "Sesame-Spinach Salad." This salad used soy sauce, which brought in flavors closer to Asian cooking.
Sunset Magazine and New Trends
By the 1970s, publishers like California's Sunset Magazine started including new types of salads in their popular cookbooks. They featured classics like Caesar salad, but also "international favorites" and "whole-meal salads."
Sunset's 1970s cookbook even had a recipe for "Chinese Chicken Salad." This recipe was similar to what we know today. It included soy sauce, salad oil, garlic, ginger, and chicken marinated in sherry wine. It also had sesame seeds, shredded iceberg lettuce, green onions, coriander (cilantro), and cashews or peanuts. The dressing used lemon.
The book noted that many versions of this salad existed. Sunset's recipe was simpler because it didn't use traditional crisp noodles. These noodles were often hard for home cooks to find or make. At this time, sesame oil was also still quite rare for most home cooks.
California Cuisine and Beyond
The popularity of Chinese chicken salad grew. It fit well with the new California cuisine style, which focused on fresh ingredients and a mix of different cultures. Sunset magazine also offered many other Asian-inspired salad recipes. These included Oriental Cabbage Slaw and Hoisin Chicken Salad. These new salads, even if not fully authentic, showed Americans' desire for more variety and international flavors.
Today, Chinese chicken salad is a regular item on many restaurant menus. You can find it everywhere from fast food places like Wendy's (their "Asian Cashew Chicken Salad") to fancy restaurants. Chef Wolfgang Puck, a pioneer of California Cuisine, even has his famous "Chinois Chicken Salad."
Modern Variations
Today's Chinese chicken salad has many different versions. People create them using ideas from restaurants, cookbooks, and online recipes. For a quick and easy homemade salad, some recipes might add water chestnuts and mandarin orange slices. Some even use store-bought instant ramen noodles and their seasoning packets to flavor the dressing. All these recipes show how people have made their own versions of this popular salad.
Chinese chicken salad and its variations are sometimes called "Asian Chicken Salad" or "Oriental Chicken Salad." Sometimes, the chicken is even removed or replaced with other ingredients like seafood.
See also
In Spanish: Ensalada de pollo china para niños
