Gordon Ramsay’s crispy chicken salad is the hoisin one from his second MasterClass. Roast chicken legs are shredded, dusted with cornstarch and rice flour and shallow-fried until crisp, then glazed in hoisin. Everything goes between the leaves of a whole butter lettuce with pickled daikon, ginger and a honey mustard vinaigrette. It serves 4 to 6 and takes about 40 minutes.
He calls it his “get out of jail card” for a big dinner party: the whole lettuce goes in the middle of the table and everyone helps themselves. You can see him lift a leaf of it in his MasterClass trailer on YouTube.
The chicken comes from the lesson before: his Szechuan pepper roast chicken. He takes the thighs and drumsticks for this salad and keeps the breasts for a Szechuan-crusted chicken with udon noodles, so one bird feeds two dinners.
Gordon Ramsay’s Hoisin Crispy Chicken Salad
Course: SaladsCuisine: AsianDifficulty: Medium4
25
minutes15
410
kcalGordon Ramsay’s crispy chicken salad recipe from his MasterClass, Teaches Cooking II (2018), with hoisin-glazed shredded chicken, pickled daikon and a honey mustard vinaigrette in a whole butter lettuce. These ingredients make a hoisin chicken salad for 4 to 6.
Ingredients
- For the chicken:
2 roasted chicken thighs and 2 drumsticks (the legs of 1 roast chicken)
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons rice flour
1 quart (950ml) vegetable oil, for frying
3 tablespoons hoisin sauce
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
zest of 1 Meyer lemon
1 tablespoon sliced chives
salt
- For the pickled daikon:
2-inch (5cm) piece of daikon, peeled and cut into thin matchsticks
½-inch (1cm) knob of fresh ginger, peeled and cut into thin matchsticks
1 cup (240ml) sugar
1 cup (240ml) rice wine vinegar
1 cup (240ml) water
- For the honey mustard vinaigrette:
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
juice of ¼ lemon
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- To serve:
1 large head Bibb or butter lettuce, root trimmed, core left whole
½ bunch scallions, sliced on the diagonal
Directions
- Pickle: Bring the water, sugar and vinegar to a boil until the sugar dissolves. Put the daikon and ginger in separate bowls, pour the hot liquid over each and leave them for 20 minutes, then chill.
- Make the vinaigrette: Whisk the honey, mustard and lemon juice, then whisk in the olive oil.
- Shred and coat: Pull the meat off the bones, which is easier while it’s still warm, and shred it into pieces about ¼ inch wide. Cut the skin into thin strips. Mix the cornstarch and rice flour, sift 1 tablespoon over the chicken and toss with your fingers, adding more for any bare pieces.
- Fry: Heat 1 inch of oil in a wok to 350°F (175°C). Fry the chicken in small batches for 2 to 4 minutes, stirring, until crisp and golden brown. Drain on paper towels and salt it. Fry the skin strips, without flour, for about 2 minutes.
- Glaze: Mix the hoisin with the rice wine vinegar and lightly toss the fried chicken in it. Add the lemon zest and chives, and taste for seasoning.
- Open the lettuce: Pull off any bruised leaves and set the lettuce core down. Open each layer with your hands and press it flat, working inward, until it looks like a blooming flower. Set it on a platter and drizzle each leaf with vinaigrette.
- Fill and serve: Spoon the chicken between the layers, starting from the bottom. Scatter over the pickled daikon and ginger, add the scallions and finish with a few more drizzles of vinaigrette.
Notes
- To eat it, do as Gordon says: break off a leaf, roll it up and eat it with your hands.
- Gordon's wine pick is a New Zealand Pinot Gris, one with good acidity and slightly tropical fruit.
- Calories are about 410 a serving for 4, or 275 for 6. Most of them come from the chicken skin, the frying oil and the vinaigrette.
FAQs
Which chicken should I use?
The thighs and drumsticks. They’re his favorite parts of the bird, because dark meat has more fat, so more flavor, and it stays moist.
His come from a whole Szechuan pepper chicken: a 3-pound bird brushed with egg yolk so the pepper and lemon salt stick, then roasted at 400°F for 60 minutes. Got breasts instead of legs? They suit his warm chicken salad recipe, where the skin is crisped in a hot pan.
How do I know the oil is hot enough without a thermometer?
Drop in one piece of chicken. If the oil froths and sizzles fast, it’s ready. If the chicken sinks and the oil barely moves, give it longer.
If the oil starts to smoke, turn off the heat for a moment and add a little cold oil to bring it down. Small batches matter, because every handful of chicken drops the temperature.
Can I make it ahead?
Yes, most of it. The chicken can be shredded 2 days ahead and the vinaigrette keeps for a week. The pickled daikon and ginger last up to a year in a sealed jar in the fridge.
The frying is the one job you can’t do early, or the chicken loses its crunch. Fry it just before your guests sit down.
What if I can’t find daikon or a whole butter lettuce?
Red radishes work in place of daikon, and scallions can stand in for the chives. Pick whichever looks fresher in the store.
No whole Bibb lettuce? Use green leaf lettuce, romaine or iceberg and build it as lettuce cups instead of a flower. For a gluten-free version, use a gluten-free hoisin.
How do I build it so every bite works?
Treat every leaf as a lettuce cup with a little of everything in it. In the lesson he wants each bite to mix crispy chicken, crunchy lettuce, tart pickles and spicy ginger.
If you wash the lettuce, dry the leaves completely first, so the vinaigrette sticks to them.
Zaytouna Studio Team is the kitchen team behind Chef Ramsay Recipes. We cook Gordon Ramsay’s recipes from his cookbooks and videos in a home kitchen and write them up for yours, with US and metric measurements.