Tea-Smoked Chicken Salad with Coriander and Pickled Red Onions

This issue has an entire article on tea-smoking poultry and fish. Soupereasy and I spent today applying the technique to chicken, duck and salmon. We made the salad to accompany the chicken and served that for lunch (the other proteins are for dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow and will post reviews after they are served). But I have tasted the salmon and it is tremendous. Would be a great pairing with a rose.

The chicken dish was delicious. The technique is very easy -- simply assemble smoking packet (rice, tea, brown sugar and spices) in a foil packet. We placed the packet in a small disposable foil pan and set the pan under the grill on the metal rack below. This was the first protein we did and the packet did not seem to create enough smoke until we made a few holes with a skewer into the top of the foil spice packet. Heat the grill and after about ten minutes you should be ready to smoke.

After the chicken is smoked and has cooled, it is sliced and added to a cabbage/carrot/red pepper slaw. It is tossed with pickled onions, a little vegetable oil, and some Sriracha (we used MUCH less than the tablespoon of Sriracha that the recipe call for -- closer to a teaspoon and that was plenty of heat -- a nice kick).

A great summer meal that can be done entirely ahead of time.