Last week, Husband and I went to Fredericksburg for an anniversary trip and while there we discovered we are actually food snobs, and also probably wine snobs. (I maintain that is a false accusation, very slanderous, very upsetting. I LOVE YOU BLACK BOX CAB.) All I’m saying is don’t visit Texas wine country looking for a foodie experience to go along with your wine. You’ll end up in a Sonic parking lot eating ice cream and complaining about the fake German food you suffered through.
On our wine tour I stumbled into my best meal of the weekend. Sweetbriar Rose is a bistro on 290 that is family-owned and serves jello shots for all of the bachelorette parties on the winery route. I had the chicken salad sandwich on homemade sourdough with pickled onions and it was the bomb dot com. If you’ve never had pickled red onions, I’m here to let you know that your life has been flavorless and boring up until right meow. There’s no such thing as too much vinegar in your life. If anyone tells you otherwise, cut them out of your life for being a negative influence.
Chicken Salad:
- 3 cups of chicken, I pulled a rotisserie chicken and dumped all of the meat into a bowl. Use the dark meat too, don’t be lame, this isn’t canned chicken salad.
- 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
- 1/2 cup mayo. Duke’s or bust.
- 1/4 cup olive oil. This is a dressing so spring for the evoo.
- 1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard
- 2 tsp honey
- 1 garlic clove, minced. Or, a giant spoonful of that pre-minced pickled garlic if you don’t care about measuring things, and we don’t.
- 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
- 1/2 tsp salt
If you pull the chicken from a rotisserie, make sure you’re just pulling off giant chunks. Nobody likes shredded chicken salad. That’s for trash chicken that wasn’t good enough to be served in chunks.
In a bowl, mix together all of the ingredients listed after the chicken. Use a whisk and give it some elbow grease so it all comes together nicely. Drink enough wine that you don’t cringe at how gross the mayo looks while doing so. Repeat after me, fat is flavor.
Mix that black magic into the chicken and let it chill in the refrigerator while you experiment with tortilla chips and pickled onions.
Super Quick Pickled Onions:
- 1 red onion, thinly sliced
- 3/4 cup apple cider vinegar
- 1/4 cup water
- 2 tbsp honey
- 1 tsp salt
Here’s the secret to not having to boil your vinegar mix for quick pickled onions: Use honey instead of sugar, the end. All you have to do is throw all of this into a shallow dish, press the onions down, and chill in the fridge for at least half an hour.
Air Fryer Tortilla Chips:
- 12 street taco corn tortillas. These teeny things were bought on accident, but I now can’t live without them.
- 1/2 tsp hot Mexican style chili powder
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1/4 tsp salt
Cut the little street taco tortillas in half. Mix the last three ingredients in a bowl and then brush on both sides of the tortillas. 350 for 7 minutes in an air fryer. I did two batches so they didn’t stick to each other.
Build a sandwich base with badass Rosemary sourdough and butter lettuce and extra mayo for your chicken salad. Taste test and realize it really needed 1/2 cup of chopped dates to lift it that little bit extra. Baby sister said the chicken salad didn’t need the dates, but I’m here to tell you that it 100% does.
And who are you going to trust? Some girl that doesn’t comment on her sister’s blog, or me?
-Lin
The Cooking Wine-O 