Recipe: Italian Cobb Salad

Perfect for weeknight dinners, this salad is ready in a snap. Shahir created a bunch of different recipes to help you get the most out of a store-bought roasted chicken — Chicken Sesame Cashew Stir-Fry, Chicken Pot Pie, Chicken Dumplings, and this delicious main-course salad. For this dish, simply use a leftover chicken breast and some olives and Gorgonzola you have in your fridge. A bit of pancetta and boiled eggs add some extra flavour. Simply pile it on a serving plate and let your dinner guests create the salad that they want, making for a dinner with lots of variety and even more veggies.

Ingredients

• ½ head romaine lettuce
• ½ head radicchio
• 4 large eggs
• 200g pancetta, diced
• 1 chicken breast (from store-bought roasted chicken)
• 2 roasted red peppers (store-bought), thinly sliced
• ½ cup Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled
• ½ can cannellini beans (270ml), drained and rinsed
• 1 cup olives
• ½ cup marinated artichoke hearts, torn into bite sized pieces
• Olive oil for cooking

Dressing:

• 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
• ½ tbsp Dijon mustard
• ½ tsp dried oregano
• 1 cup light olive oil
• Water as needed
• Salt and pepper to taste

For serving:

• Crusty Italian bread or baguette
• 1 large platter

Preparation

Thinly slice romaine and radicchio with a knife or tear with your hands into bite sized pieces. Add to a large serving platter, either mixed or in alternating strips, set aside.

Next, fill a medium saucepan with water and bring to a boil. Once gently boiling, carefully add your eggs and cook for 6-10 minutes depending on how well cooked you like your eggs. While eggs are boiling you can start frying your pancetta. Add pancetta to a frying pan over medium high heat along with a splash of olive oil, stirring occasionally. Cook until crispy, around 5 minutes.

Remove eggs from boiling water using a slotted spoon and transfer to a bowl filled with cold water. Once cool to the touch, peel eggs, quarter or half and place in a row on your large serving platter, season with salt and pepper. Remove pancetta from frying pan with a slotted spoon and add to platter in a row beside your eggs.

Tear or cube your chicken breast into bite sized pieces and make a row beside the pancetta. Follow with rows of the sliced roasted red pepper, crumbled Gorgonzola, drained and rinsed cannellini beans, olives and artichokes.

For dressing, whisk together red wine vinegar, mustard and oregano in a medium bowl. Slowly stream in olive oil while whisking to emulsify. Thin with water if necessary. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serve dressing on the side, let your family serve and dress their salad themselves. Serve with crusty Italian bread, enjoy.