In Savoury:

Land Before Time Chicken Salad[1]

[1] Yes I am referring to the cartoon ‘Land Before Time’. I like the name, get over it.

Ingredients: Salad

Chicken breasts	[4-5 and cubed]
Olive Oil	[Whatever you like]
Ice Berg Lettuce[1]	[1 unevenly chopped[2]]
Fenugreek Leaves	[a bunch[3]]
Red Bell Peppers	[ 2-3 sliced long]
Carrots	[3-4 sliced thinly]
Cucumbers	[2-3 sliced thickly]
Maple Syrup	[4 tbsps]
Balsamic Vinegar	[2 tbsps]
Toasted Bread Slice	[1 toast^{^[4]}]
Dried Rosemary	[1tspn]
Dried Thyme	[half a teaspoon]
White pepper[5]	[to taste]
Black pepper	[to taste]
Salt	[to taste]
Oranges	[1-2]

[1] Or any lettuce that you prefer if ice berg isn’t available.

[2] One big one or 2-3 small ones

[3] These are strong flavoured as compared to the lettuce in this recipe. Make sure the leaves are mostly whole and just chop at the stems – the salad will look pretty. This is also called ‘Fresh Methi’

[4] Just normal bread that you tend to toast in the morning.

[5] You can use black pepper, instead.

Method: Land Before Time Chicken Salad

Take the cubed chicken and fry it on low heat in the olive oil for about 10 minutes. Put a dash of water in from time to time, but don’t pour a lot in [in one go].
Squeeze out the oranges into a glass, pick out the seeds [with a fork, not your fingers] and pour onto the frying chicken.
Fry. Now if it needs some more water, pour some in.
Dump in the white pepper, salt, rosemary and thyme.
Pour a little bit more water in [only if there isn’t a lot of liquid left in the chicken], cover, and let cook on a low heat.
Slice the carrots thinly and place on a covered oven tray. Drizzle some olive oil and salt and pepper on them. Place in the oven [110ͦc] for about 10 – 15 minutes, or until they look all brown and caramelized. Then take them out and pour the extra oil into a cup and pour onto the chicken. Place the carrots in a bowl and also put them aside.
The chicken should be done now – check it… switch it off if it’s done. Make sure that there’s still some liquid left in it. Now pick the chicken pieces out of the liquid and set aside. Pour half a glass of water into the liquid that is still left in the pan and stir until the mixture dissolves. Put the pan back on low heat and keep stirring. When you have a little bit left, pour in the Balsamic Vinegar and keep stirring.
Just as the liquid starts to look like a sauce [i.e. creamy (though there isn’t any cream in the recipe) and tasty], put in the maple syrup. Cook down until everything smells nice.[1] Then put aside. This is the salad dressing.
Take the toasted slice of bread, and cut the edges off. Now cut into small cubes. Take a clean frying pan, and oil the pan ever so slightly – I like to use olive oil – if you want to use flavoured oil [I’ve heard garlic-infused oil tastes nice with this], go ahead. Now toss the toast cubes around in the pan. They should get lightly toasted all around – keep them moving, otherwise they’ll burn and taste/look funny. After you like how your croutons look, put them aside. In the same pan put the sliced red bell peppers in and do the same thing to them. You might want to add in a dash more of oil.
Now slice the cucumbers into big chunks [think land before time while slicing].
Cut the Lettuce into big pieces, and when cutting the fenugreek leaves, try to keep the leaves attached to the stalk – it looks nicer. In fact, I barely cut the fenugreek leaves as it is.
Now toss everything together and serve.

[1] If the sauce isn’t tasting right, put in some more black pepper and maybe a pinch of red chilli powder – if you use red chilli powder, add some more water and cook a little longer as you shouldn’t eat raw spice. You might have to then put in a little bit extra Balsamic Vinegar – but only the smallest of dashes. THE SMALLEST.

I often place the salad dressing in a container next to the salad so people can decide how much they want.