Chicken Salad Part Two

Every kitchen should be equipped with some key pieces of equipment. One such piece is a good stock pot, which is essential to boiling our chicken. In our fast paced world everyone is taking short cuts, that can be necassary, but it comes at a price. When cooking it is often flavor that is given up for the sake of speed. When making chicken salad, I know many who use boneless and skinless cut chicken pieces to make theirs. Again that's fine, it is faster, but you lose flavor. It is in the bones and skin of the bird that most of the flavor comes from. So I make chicken salad from whole birds. First rinse your chicken well, then salt and pepper the cavity. Then place into the cavity a whole peeled onion and three or four cloves of garlic. Set the bird into the stock pot and place around the bird stalks of celery and carrot. I like to add bay leaves, thyme, parsley and a pinch of nutmeg to the pot and then pour in water. The water should come up over the chicken by about an inch. Bring it to the boil. Then lower the heat and simmer for about 1 to 1 1/2 hours. From this will you not only get some great tasting meat for your salad, but some of the most delicious stock as well. In my third post about Chicken Salad I will talk about smoking and baking together, but most importantly the recipes.