Quinoa Salad with Shaved Cucumber, Pomegranate and Chicken

(serves 4-6)

Summer's coming, so time to get creative with the refreshing salads! The star ingredient for today is: pomegranate. It's usually a somewhat expensive, unattractive looking fruit. Until last year i had generally ignored it in the supermarket, but when i was in Croatia and Turkey last year it was cheap and widely available, so i thought i may as well try to get some antioxidants and see what all the fuss is about!

My travelling buddy at the time also introduced me to the art of patience to be acquired whilst sitting and slowly unpicking the seeds by hand, taking care not to squash them (otherwise red juice will squirt at you and stain your clothes). Although i am not sure if this was just a secret ploy to have 'quiet time', it was fun and now i love to use this fruit as an addition to salads for its extra crunch, bright colour and juicy explosion in the mouth!

Some of my cute kitchen utensils i got recently

Prep time: 30 min
Cooking time: 45min

Ingredients:
1 C Quinoa

1kg Chicken Maryland

2 Pomegranate

200g Mix lettuce

2 Cucumbers

1/2  Spanish Onion

1/3 C finely chopped parsley

Dressing:

2 T Apple cider

Zest of 1 lemon

Juice of 1 lemon

Handful of Chives, finely chopped

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

Method:

1. Clean and poach the chicken - cook for 10 minutes in boiling water on medium-high heat and then take off the heat and leave for 20-25min. Check it is cooked by piercing it and making sure no blood comes out.

2. Cook the quinoa with 3 C boiling water (or according to the instructions) for 15-18min, or until the quinoa has absorbed all the water and dried out slightly. 

NB. You can leave it off the heat in the pot for a little while to help it dry out a little, as you don't want it to be too soggy when you add it into the rest of the salad.

3. In the meantime, shave the cucumbers into long thin strips with a vegetable peeler, taking care not to include any seeds. Put in a bowl with cold water and leave in the fridge.

4. Finely slice the spanish onion, and cut the salad leaves into bite-size pieces. 

5. De-seed the pomegranate

6. Mix the dressing together.

7. Dress the spanish onion and salad leaves in a large salad bowl with 1/3 of the dressing. Add the quinoa and parsley and toss thoroughly.

Salad prep

8. Once the chicken is done, you can put it in cold water to help to cool it. Shred the chicken into thin slices. 

9. Dress the chicken with salt, pepper and 1/3 of the dressing.

10. Drain the water from the cucumber and dress the cucumber lightly in salt, olive oil and some lemon juice

11. Mix the cucumber, chicken, pomegranate and remaining dressing into the salad. Garnish with shaved cucumber strips!