Quinoa Chicken Salad with Roasted Leek, Cherry Tomatoes and Radicchio

(serves 6)

An experiment. Inspired from a previous cooking attempt with pearled barley which turned out well but i didn't get a chance to take photos and blog about, so i thought i may as well try it again and change it up a little. A combination of some safe crowd-pleasing ingredients: lemon mustard chicken, roasted leek and cherry tomatoes, and added radicchio, a bitter purple lettuce common in italian salads, to add a bit of bite to it. This dish does requires a bit of prep but worth the effort in the end! 

Prep time: 20 min
Cooking time: 1 hr

Ingredients: 
1 kg Chicken Maryland
1 leek
1 punnet cherry tomatoes
1 C quinoa
3 C water
1/2 head of radicchio or 100 g
1/2 spanish onion
Wholegrain mustard
Lemon vinaigrette (recipe found here)
Zest of 1 lemon
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Method:
1. To poach the chicken, boil 1 kettle of water and put into a pot. Cook on high heat for 5-10 min, then take off the heat and leave for 30 minutes. If available, put into a thermal cooker (helps to retain the heat). The chicken is ready when you sear it and no blood comes out.
2.  Remove the chicken from the hot water, and soak in cold water for 3-5 min. This allows it to be cool enough to shred. Shred into thin slices and dress in salt, pepper, mustard, lemon zest and lemon vinaigrette.
3. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 180˚C.
4. Dress the cherry tomatoes in olive oil, salt and pepper and place onto a tray lined with foil.
5. Chop the leek diagonally about 2cm thickness. Dress with olive oil, salt, pepper and balsamic vinegar and also put on foil-lined tray. Bake both the tomatoes and the leek for approximately 20 minutes, checking occasionally. 
NB. Tomatoes are done when they are start to burst out of their skins. Leek is done when it is soft and a little burnt on the edges.
6. Cook the quinoa with 3 C water for 15 minutes, making sure it has soaked up all the water at the end. Let it sit for about 2-3 minutes off the heat.
7. Finely dice the spanish onion, and roughly chop the radicchio into thin slices.
8. Toss the chicken, quinoa, cooked leek and cherry tomatoes, radicchio and spanish onion together in a bowl. Dress with salt, pepper and lemon vinaigrette to taste!