RECIPE - Brazilian Chicken Salad (Salpicão)

As mentioned in this earlier post on Flavors of Brazil, the Brazilian chicken salad called salpicão can be wonderful when it's homemade and light, and can be dreadful when it's a commercially made stodgy mess. Sort of like North American potato salad, which can range from heavenly to hellish depending on who made it and what kind of profit margin was desired.

This recipe from the Brazilian food blog Frango com Banana is a good example of a homestyle recipe for salpicão. Being a very traditional recipe it called for canned corn and canned peas - both standard ingredients in salpicão. I'm not a fan of either, so in my translation of the recipe, I've substituted fresh or frozen corn and peas. If you want to duplicate an authentic salpicão, please feel free to open a can of corn and one of peas instead and add them to the mix.

This recipe, like many such recipes for salads and cold dishes, is a guideline not a template. Feel free to substitute and modify. If you want the final product to be salpicão, however, you may NOT omit the packaged shoestring potatoes. They're what makes salpicão salpicão and what prevents it from just being chicken salad.

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RECIPE - Brazilian Chicken Salad (Salpicão)

1 whole chicken breast, boneless and skinless, poached, cooled and shredded
2 medium carrots, peeled and grated
1/2 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels, cooked and cooled
1/2 cup fresh or frozen peans, cooked and cooled
2 small green apples (Granny Smith or similar) cored, peeled an cubed
1/3 cup seedless raisins or sultanas
2 springs fresh Italian parsley, finely chopped
1 small red onion, finely chopped
1 1/2 cup good-quality commercial or homemade mayonnaise
1/2 cup creme fraiche or sour cream
1 standard package shoestring potatoes
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In a large mixing bowl, combine the chicken, grated carrot, corn, peas, apples, raisins, parsley and red onion. Stir well with wooden spoon to combine. Add 1/2 of the package of shoestring potatoes, and stir again. Add the mayonnais and creme fraiche or sour cream, and stir until all ingredients are combined and coated with dressing. Taste for seasoning and and add salt and pepper to taste (remember that the shoestring potatoes and already salted, so be careful not to oversalt).

Put into a large serving bowl, or onto a serving platter, and sprinkle the remaining 1/2 package of shoestring potatoes over the top.

Salpicão - Brazil's chicken salad

In Brazil, any time you walk along the line of dishes at a buffet, whether it's a wedding reception, a birthday party or even a standard self-service restaurant, one dish you can assume you'll find among the choice of salads and cold dishes is called salpicão. Salpicão is to the Brazilian buffet table what molded-jelly salads were to church basement suppers in the USA and Canada in the 50s and 60s - ubiquitous and omnipresent. It is basically Brazil's version of chicken salad, and as such has multitudinous variations and takes on a central theme - cooked and shredded chicken mixed with some fruits and vegetables, all bound together with mayonnaise.

Like the little girl who had a little curl, it can be said of salpicão that when it is good, it is very, very good, and when it is bad it is horrid. And also potentially dangerous, for any mayonnaise-based salad that isn't properly refrigerated in Brazil's hot climate can turn bad almost instantaneously. I tend to avoid salpicão in commercial establishments for this and other reasons, but have eaten some wonderful versions in home buffets.

Less appetizing and cheaper versions of salpicão tend to load the mixture with a lot of canned corn and canned peas, whereas better ones feature more chicken meat and fresh vegetables and fruits. Although the number of recipes for salpicão is unlimited, there are, however, a few must-haves to make it a true salpicão. First, there has to be fresh fruit in the mix, usually diced apples but sometimes pineapple. Second, some sort of dried fruit much be added. This is usually raisins, but I've also seen chopped dried apricots. And finally, the salad must be topped with packaged commercial shoestring potatoes (sorry!) If you don't have these things, it's not really a salpicão at all.

In the next post Flavors of Brazil, I'll provide a typical recipe for salpicão. If made at home with good ingredients and a light touch on the mayonnaise it can be very good indeed.