Chicken & avocado sandwich with snow pea sprouts & semi-dried tomatoes

The warmer weather has had me craving for healthier and cold foods such as salads and sandwiches. Having very rich comfort food at the moment makes me more lethargic and full even though they’re still very tasty.

Although I like pork the best, I also love my chicken (I really like all meats…haha), however I know it’s not so for everyone, my cousin is a classic example.

We grew up together in an old apartment in Shanghai and the street it was on was the stinkiest, loudest and most disgusting fresh food market, this was before it was torn down. But walking through that street everyday to go to school, smelling freshly killed chicken, did something bad to that young child that was my cousin. As a result, he claims he doesn’t eat anything with 2 feet. I’m sure he wouldn’t like this dish very much.

I’m glad I don’t dislike any foods for such reasons because I would miss out on some of the best tasting dishes out there.

Yuye and I made a whole poached chicken a few days ago and had that over 2 days with rice. Even though it was meat, the bare chicken and natural soup flavours made it not rich at all. It’s something we make all the time since the soup is always so fragrant and delicious, not to mention there’s tender chicken to go with it. I will post up a recipe for this dish at some stage but it never turns out very pretty.

We had a bowl of shredded poached chicken left over so I thought of combining it with other left over ingredients I had in the fridge. It turned into the most beautiful sandwich I’ve had in a long time, probably just second to the roast pork sandwich with pork crackling I have at my local shopping centre.

You can use roast chicken instead of poached chicken which might make this sandwich taste even better. You can also substitute other fresh vegetables such as lettuce, fresh tomatoes or spinach instead of the ones I’ve used here.

As the poached chicken was bland, I first fried it with some olive oil, shichimi (Japanese 7 spices with sesame seeds, pepper, chilli and so forth) as well as salt and pepper to give it flavour.

I used fresh sourdough as the bread but you can use any bread you like.

Chicken and avocado sandwich with snow pea sprouts and semi-dried tomatoes
Serves 2

Ingredients

• 150g chicken (roast or poached), shredded
• 4 slices sandwich bread (I used sourdough), toasted
• 2 tbsp mayonnaise
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp mustard seeds (or English mustard)
• Roughly 10 pieces of semi dried tomatoes
• 30g snow pea shoots (add more if you want as it’s so delicious)
• 1/2 large avocado, or 1 small avocado
• Salt & pepper to taste
• Olive oil to drizzle

Instructions

1. Mix mayonnaise, lemon juice, mustard seeds and a dash of olive oil in a small bowl. Add salt & pepper to taste. Set aside.
2. Put avocado in another bowl and lightly smash the flesh, turning it into a chunky spread. Season with some lemon juice and salt & pepper and mix together.
3. Spread avocado onto 2 pieces of toasted bread, each topped with semi dried tomatoes, chicken and then snow pea shoots. Add a dollop of mayonnaise and more salt and pepper to taste then a drizzle of olive oil on top. Close with remaining pieces of bread.
4. Serve with a wrapping on the outside as it can get messy when consuming.

Question time: Are there foods you’d rather not eat because of some psychological reason?