Chicken salad is one of my all-time favorite dishes. It’s good mounded in a butter lettuce cup or spread between two slices of whole wheat bread. Many recipes call for poached chicken. Years ago, when trying to replicate the famous chicken salad then sold at Zabar’s, the renowned food market on New York’s Upper West Side, I tried roasting the chicken at a low temperature on the bone. When meat, any meat, is cooked on the bone, it is more tender and juicy. I still do not know whether this is how Zabar’s did it, but it is delicious and wonderfully simple.

　　

Ingredients

serves 4 to 6

　　4 (8-ounce) bone-in chicken breast halves, with skin

　　Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper

　　2 tablespoons canola oil

　　Juice of 1/2 lemon

　　1 1/2 cups mayonnaise (page 282)

　　4 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon

　　

Step 1

Preheat the oven to 300°F. Season the chicken with salt and pepper on both sides and place in a shallow roasting pan. Drizzle over the oil. Bake until the juices run clear, about 1 hour to 1 1/4 hours, depending on the size of the breasts. Remove to a rack to cool.

　　

Step 2

When cool enough to touch, remove the skin from the breasts. Pull the meat from the bone. Cut the meat into 1-inch cubes and place in a bowl. Add the lemon juice, mayonnaise, and tarragon. Taste and adjust for seasoning with salt and pepper.

　　From Bon Appétit, Y’all: Recipes and Stories From Three Generations of Southern Cooking, © 2008 by Virginia Willis. Reprinted by permission of Ten Speed Press. Buy the full book from Amazon or Abe Books.