Chicken and Eggplant Salad with Yogurt Dressing

Fry the chicken and vegetables

1. The chicken fillet must be fresh and fairly large. Choose young eggplants with a dark, glossy skin and undeveloped seeds. Also take a sweet bell pepper, red or green. For the dressing you need thick, low-fat yogurt; I buy Turkish yogurt with about 1.6% fat. Fresh dill and garlic are classic additions to Turkish sauces and yogurt appetizers.

   

2. Fry the chicken fillet. If you can grill the chicken and vegetables, great. If not, an ordinary skillet will do. Remove any bones and visible fat from the chicken fillet and pound it lightly with a kitchen mallet to even out the thickness. Brush the skillet with a little vegetable oil, literally a thin film, and fry the fillet over medium heat until cooked through and nicely browned on both sides; the meat inside should be white, with no pink juices. Transfer the cooked fillet to a plate to cool to room temperature.

   

3. Fry the sweet pepper. Add a little more vegetable oil to the skillet. Remove the seeds and stem from the pepper and cut it in half lengthwise. Fry it in the hot skillet. Ideally, press it against the bottom of the skillet with something for more even browning. The outer skin should start to darken and blister. Once the pepper has cooled, peel off this skin; it is not wanted in a chicken and eggplant salad.

   

4. Fry the eggplants. Wash and dry the eggplants, and cut off the tips. With a sharp knife, slice them into 5-6 mm thick slices. Eggplants are usually fried in a lot of vegetable oil, which they soak up like a sponge. That significantly raises the overall calorie count of the dish. To avoid this, brush the surface of the eggplant with vegetable oil using a silicone brush and place it on the heated skillet. Fry over medium heat until nicely browned, then brush the unfried side with oil and turn it over. The fried eggplants should cool to room temperature.

   

Assemble the salad

1. Shred the chicken, eggplant and pepper into strips. Once the vegetables and chicken have cooled, shred them for the salad. It turns out to be much nicer when the salad is not diced but all the ingredients are torn into strips. And you do not have to use a knife: the fried chicken fillet, pepper and eggplant can be pulled into strips with your fingers, coarse or fine, as you prefer. Put everything in a deep bowl.

   

2. Dress and mix the salad. Salt the chicken and vegetables and season with ground white pepper; black works too, but it will show in the finished dish against the light yogurt dressing. Add the thick, low-fat yogurt. Peel the garlic and grate it on a fine grater or put it through a press. Remove the tough stems from the fresh dill and chop it finely with a knife. Mix the salad, trying to distribute the dressing evenly so the pieces of chicken and vegetables keep their shape.

   

Serving

1. Divide the salad among plates. This appetizer is served at room temperature, so there is no need to chill it. Put the salad on plates, garnish with a sprig of dill and serve. If you like, add more pepper.

   

   Quite often other fresh or fried vegetables are added to such salads, most often cucumber and tomato. In my taste, they are too juicy to go with a thick yogurt dressing. Still, it turns out tasty, and you can add sun-dried tomatoes.

   It is better not to make this salad the day before. Prepare all the fried ingredients, then the next day bring them to room temperature, make the dressing and mix the salad.