This salad is a rich paste made with chicken, walnuts, stock and breadcrumbs. It is delicious spread on bread, oatcakes and other savoury biscuits. I got this recipe from Cookistan, when we were on holiday in Istanbul.
The Circassians were a tribal people who lived in the area between the Black Sea and the Caspian sea, north east of modern Turkey. They were part of the Ottoman Empire, and the dish has made its way into modern Turkish cookery.
INGREDIENTS:
- 2 chicken breasts, poached in 1 litre of well-seasoned stock
- 250g walnuts
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 200g panko breadcrumbs, or other dried breadcrumbs
- 4 tbsp mayonnaise
- 12 tbsp plain yoghurt
- Chopped dill, optional
- 1 tsp cumin
- 3 tsp sweet paprika, to taste
- 2 tsp salt and 1 tsp pepper to taste (quite a lot of salt and pepper)
- 6 teaspoons paprika (sweet)
- Garnish: 1 tsp paprika in olive oil and whole walnut halves
METHOD:
- Cool the poached chicken, and strain and reserve the stock.
- Shred the cooked chicken breast very finely.
- Roughly crush the walnuts and finely crush the garlic.
- Soften the breadcrumbs with stock to make a soft paste.
- Add the chicken, olive oil, mayonnaise, yoghurt, cumin, paprika dill, and salt and pepper to make a paste, and stir in the walnuts and garlic. Check the seasoning; this needs quite a bit of salt to bring out the flavour.
- Garnish with 1 tsp paprika fried in 1 tbsp olive oil, walnut halves, and chopped dill.