Large salads – Church summer lunch

Both of these worked well, but there was a fair bit of effort in top & tailing the cheap beans, and the quinoa salad was a little fiddly.

Green bean, pancetta and chickpea salad – serves 40 with the below

From Taste, but with modifications

• approx. 2.5kg green beans
• 625g dry chickpeas soaked overnight then cooked
• 200g streaky bacon slowly fried to crispy over 30 minutes rather than pancetta
• Approx 125mL of 40/60 lemon juice olive oil dressing.

 

Chicken quinoa salad – serves 40 with the above as a side

A combination of the chicken as per this Taste recipe and a simpler quinoa salad

• 1.3kg Chicken breasts, marinated overnight. Marinade was lemon zest instead of lime, and in future could probably modify to be lemon juice as well.  Less juice for a thicker marinade. Cut to 3cm thick and fry both sides in batches.
• 1.5kg dry quinoa cooked absorption method 1 quinoa : 1.5 water by volume 15 minutes then left sit 10. Dish out to 4 platters
• 4 bunches asparagus and 500g baby peas
• 3 continental cucumbers diced, most of the green from a bunch of spring onions
• Approx 125mL of 40/60 lemon juice olive oil dressing. Could increase and add more flavours.

Quantity of chicken was a little light and could have increased.