Definitely white wine, EVOO, & lemon, but I wouldn't add the egg or mayo unless it's really needed. Since it's a 'salad', I might add chopped marinated artichoke hearts. And maybe kalamata olives. lol! Sounds good!

If I’m reading this correctly, you’re after a standalone salad served with some grilled bread, not a chicken salad “on” bread, right? If so, sounds good but I see no need to thicken the sauce with mayo or egg. Perhaps some tiny florets of burnt broccoli into the mix? That’ll hold sauce without having to thicken it too much. Chunks of grilled summer squash would also be nice.

Yeah, FOAS, I wasn't sure if that was toasted bread for a chicken salad sandwich or toast points to eat with the chicken salad.

I like the veg suggestions you've all given. I kept trying to figure out how to make it piccata and still have veg and got a bit stuck. Thinking on the suggestions, maybe either it's sandwich veg, which could be long sliced squash, maybe lightly grilled, tomato, butter lettuce or maybe red ruffle. That kind of thing. Or served as a scoop on a bed of grilled squash, artichoke hearts, broccolini. Mmmmm.... I think that sounds good! Even more, I think they're in my veg drawer.

Dave, dredging the chicken in flour allows it to color up nicely when seared. It's a standard preparation. The extra flour washes into the sauce and thickens it. I'd think rice flour would scorch too easily. Some people use starch for this rather than AP. For my salad, I don't care about browning and will probably steam poach. No flour.

Oh, and those are capers in the picture, not sad peas. :) I love peas. But not in piccata. :)

Picture?

I'll try to remember to take one. It'll probably happen tomorrow.

yes, know about the flour. Grams used to double-dredge [flour-canned milk-flour] and brown on the stovetop in butter or lard, then bake. Still remember the aroma. When I was in college living in a house, we shared cooking duties. They always asked for the chicken ... every ... single .... Sunday. The agreement was, I will cook. YOU can clean.

Got no arguments. Ha!

Gads, that was back in the early 80s ...

I make chicken salad a lot....a LOT!! As I have mentioned before I do church funeral lunches and other church lunches as well. I ask the family what they would like....they ask what do you make....and in the summer I always mention chicken salad as well as a pasta and ham salad and bean and vegetable.....and before I get very far, they say "Oh Chicken salad!! That would be nice!".....and I think "again?"
I do make one with very finely chopped chicken finely diced celery. mayo and lemon juice for sandwiches, but for stand alone chicken salad, I seem to do the same thing over and over.
I need to make too much to do the picatta thing with the capers....but always looking for ideas that can easily be adapted to between 15 adn 25 pounds of chicken to serve from 60 to 150.
Currently I poach the chicken in a court boullion, cut up and make a mayo, lemon sauce....sometimes I add some dijon and a fair amount of curry powder, sometimes people say..."But no curry".....and I vary the add in stuff among celery, pineapple tidbits, grapes, craisins, water chestnuts, slivered almonds and pecans.
I have one recipe called Coronation Chicken Salad that contains apricots....seems to me they are pureed in the sauce....but have not made it.
I will be watching closely for ideas!

Plllog - To clarify, your sad pea comment made me think you posted a picture here. None shows for us.

Chicken salad ingredients need a finishing dash of Angostura bitters for a distinctive flavor. A quick search for 'cooking with Angostura bitters' should give you additional flavorful cooking ideas.

Sorry, FOAS and PM. I was answering Bragu who was talking about Giada and frozen peas (and she's pretty picky about things Italian so I was having trouble imagining peas in piccata let alone frozen), so I googled chicken piccata and her recipe was the feature above the listings, and I figured that was what he was referring to. No peas. Pretty sure the "frozen peas" was meant as a joke--as soon as I saw the picture I laughed. I have a tendency to flip that kind of silliness with a wry straight answer. :)

Ah-ha!!! Lol

plllog, this might be way off what your thinking for a chicken salad, but I was wondering about making something like a chicken piccata panzanella for a stand alone salad. Just cut the "piccata-cooked" chicken into strips and toss with veggies of choice, capers, homemade croutons, and an oil/lemon based vinaigrette (or something that appeals to you). if you prefer a creamy dressing, maybe use some Greek yogurt to thicken. Anyway, you've got me thinking I might make a Chicken Piccata Panzanella-ish salad for an upcoming gathering.

I've been literally under the weather (the weather makes me feel flu-ish and sleepy) so I haven't made it yet.

Chloebud, that sounds good! Yours is more make a salad based on chicken piccata, whereas I'm trying for make a chicken salad (same as the kind Linda was talking about) but use piccata as an inspiration for the flavor. Both have merit and yours sounds more likely to be good without tweaking. :)

I think with your panzanella salad, to keep the flavors clean, I'd also put the bulk of the vegetables alongside rather than in, and stick to the vinaigrette. To me, piccata flavor is lemon, capers, garlic, butter/wine, in that order, and the veal or chicken of course. Of course, even if you start there, there's no reason not to end up somewhere else entirely. :)

Pillog ... another one for you ... chicken P .... cotta.

*face palm*

get to feeling better ...

plllog, using piccata as an inspiration for flavor would appeal to me in many forms. Would love to hear what you end up doing. I just did a quick check online for "chicken piccata salad" and saw several links. I haven't looked at any yet but the idea's appealing.

So, the first experiment went well. I'd call it a success. Calls from Europe and people to be picked up nonwithstanding. So my time allowance got messed up, and at some point it turned into just lunch. :)

I started making the dressing a couple of days ago, more or less as I said, but even the Vita-Mix couldn't emulsify it. It needed the egg yolk, but I hadn't pasteurized the eggs yet. I was thinking of starting over anyway. The flippin' cricket was yammering on about using the very floral Spanish EVOO which I like, but it was on a sealed new bottle, and the Italian EVOO was open and not rancid (I did taste as well as smell), so I thought not only should it be Italian for an Italian inspired dish, but it should also get used up before it does go off. Big mistake. I really do hate olives. Straight tasting from a spoon, a little sip didn't taste bad at all, but in the dressing, even though the reduced wine and lemon juice were present, it tasted obnoxiously like olives. Maybe from the aeration trying to get it to emulsify without egg yolk. Bleh. So I stuck it in the fridge.

I poached the chicken (boneless breasts) in white wine last night.

Today, out of time and having no plan B for lunch, I added a bit of the lemon/wine/oil dressing to some pretty good jarred mayonnaise. I was out of time for mincing and toasting the garlic, so I just added garlic pepper blend to the mayo. The lemon was very there but not forward, much like in a good piccata. The salad was just the chicken, capers and dressing. It could have used to sit and meld a while, but it was declared good. I offered the veggies, but no one wanted warm, so we ended up with just arugula, which went nicely. And buttered toast from the toaster since there was no garlic butter pan.

So...not what I planned, but a good lunch and, I think, proof of concept.

Notes: The quantity of the doctored mayonnaise was similar to the amount of vinaigrette I would have used. It wasn't a goop-fest. The chicken was diced fairly small, not minced. It didn't stick together like some chicken salad does. I wouldn't have liked it goopier, but that's a matter of taste.

The toast would have fit better with garlic, but ordinary garlic toast would have been fine. I had purposefully underseasoned the lemon/wine/oil dressing so I could fix it up later, so the pepper and salt in the garlic pepper were needed. I think the toasted minced garlic might have been overwhelming to the doctored mayo, though it would have been just right with the original dressing.

Anyway, it was good, and now that I have a pasteurized yolk saved from an eggwhile in the marzipan, I'll probably try again soon.

Since there were no beautiful steamed vegetable chunks with the lovely portion of chicken salad on top (even as it was, it was served family style), I didn't take a picture, but if someone really wants it, I can take a picture of the leftover chicken salad. :)

plllog, that was a great summation. Sounds like you went the right route with the addition of mayo. The idea of just chicken, capers, dressing and arugula sounds good to me. These things usually do come down to a matter of taste, and it sounds like you nailed it. Thanks for the good write-up! :-)

Classic Coronation Chicken has the dried apricots chopped and in the curry-mayonnaise sauce along with the chopped chicken.