We share with you our recipes, reviews, tips and thoughts on building a happy home together through food.
Go to any personal finance sites or blogs over the past year, and one of the ‘tips’ you are sure to find ‘brown bag lunches’ as one of the first mentioned in saving some extra dough every year. I figured out that packing lunch at home rather than wasting $5 for insipid cafeteria food was an easy way to leave myself with some extra cash after a few months of graduating – though at that time, I relied on mostly rice and curry to lunch on.
I soon found however that one cannot subsist on the typical Indian lunches alone; you get bored and may get tempted to just eat out for a few days. So I learnt to mix up my lunches, taking a variety of wraps, sandwiches, pastas and leftovers from dinner – it made planning for a week of lunches fun, and made me actually look forward to unpacking my brown bag on most days!
One of the easiest lunches to take are wraps; a wide variety of filling work well when rolled up along with a few greens within a pliable wrap, and for the most part you can pre-assemble them the night before or even a few days before. If you are lucky and have access to a toaster oven at work, you can warm up your wrap ahead of lunch and snicker at suckers paying top dollar for cold / stale / over-sodiumed wraps at the cafeteria. Our old floor at work had a beat up old oven that worked well enough for me to crisp up hummus wraps or tuna sandwiches. A few months ago we moved in to a brand new floor with luxurious wooden paneling, fancy paintings, a huge kitchen area, 3 microwaves but alas, no toaster oven! So I had to come up with a filling that would taste great cold or at room-temperature – and nothing fit the bill better than a spicy, smooth curried chicken salad.
Curried chicken salad for me was an accidental invention (I have since discovered that a lot of the TV chefs have their own version). I started off with a traditional turkey waldorf salad recipe, but found it too bland for me. So the next time I had some roasted chicken at hand, I decided to mix it with curry powder; I used desi golden raisins instead of the dark brown Sunkist ones, and substituted cashew pieces for the walnuts since I had those on hand. I omitted the apples, as the salad had enough sweetness from the raisins, and added some cilantro leaves for garnish. I used low-fat mayo to cut down the richness and let the curry flavor come through.
The chunky salad was excellent between burger buns or as a quick snack by itself. However, when I tried to use it within wraps the chicken pieces kept sliding out and led to pretty messy fingers – not what I was looking for at lunch. The solution was simple – use the food processor to make a thick paste out of the chicken, mayo and curry seasonings, and then mix in the cashews and raisins for added texture. Some fresh spinach leaves added color to the wrap, and the chicken paste ensure a stay-in-place wrap filling. You can pre-assemble the wrap the night before and wrap in foil (I cut the wrap in half after wrapping with foil, so I have two easy–to-eat halves); you can toast the tortilla’s ahead of assembling if you prefer a more toasty flavor.
THE RECIPE:
YOU’LL NEED:
- 1 cooked chicken breast, chopped
- 2 tbslp medium curry powder (spicy/mild can be used depending on your taste preference)
- 1-2 tblsp low-fat mayonnaise
- 1tsp ground cumin
- 1tsp garlic powder
- 2tsp salt
- 1tsp black pepper
- 2tbslp golden raisins
- 2tbslp cashews, chopped and toasted
- Few fresh cilantro leaves (optional)
- Fresh baby spinach leaves
- Whole wheat wraps
THE METHOD:
- Place chicken pieces, mayo, curry powder, cumin, garlic powder, salt and pepper into food processor; process till smooth.
- Empty the chicken paste into a bowl, and mix in cashew pieces and raisins.
- Toast wraps for a few seconds if desired.
- For each wrap, use about 4-5 spinach leaves and 1-2tbslp of the chicken salad (depending on the size, thickness of your wraps).
- Roll up wraps and use toothpicks to secure if needed.
- Cover in foil, and cut into halves.