TOAST TOPPER: PESTO CHICKEN WITH CELERY & RADISH, using leftovers

Another splendid, generous toast topper for a satisfying lunch or snack...

 Pesto Chicken with Celery & Radish Toast Topper/Sandwich filler

Having mightily messed up a recipe for chicken wings, the 67goingon50 kitchen had a surplus of cooked chicken.  

It was boring ripping the cooked flesh from the wings but in a cost of living crisis, we can't be fussy.  And the chicken - which had been marinated in yoghurt - was  tender and easily removed from the bones.

Other ingredients found while rummaging around in the fridge created a delightful mixture of creaminess, a bit of crunch, rich savouriness and a hint of heat.  

The Chicken Pesto toast topper was served generously mounded on fresh seeded sourdough bread but certainly could have been stuffed into a sandwich or rolled into a wrap.   

Cost: very little with leftovers but if starting from scratch, probably about £2 thick (2022)

Makes: 3 generous portions for sourdough toast; multiplies easily.

Ingredients:

generous 2/3 cup leftover chicken, bones and skin removed, chopped coarsely

1 generous tablespoon pesto (jars are fine)

1 stick celery, finely chopped

1 rounded tbsp mayonnaise

2 rounded tbsp 0-fat thick plain yoghurt

generous squeeze lemon juice

half tsp pepper

Garnish: thinly sliced radish

Method:

1. Stir together chicken & celery; squeeze over lemon juice
2. Add sufficient mayo/yoghurt to coat generously 
3. Stir in pepper
4. Serve mounded on toast, scattered with thinly sliced radish, or on plain thickly sliced bread, or in a sandwich. 

Comment:

'A very good open-faced sandwich, lots of interesting flavours, texture and colour.  I'd have that again but think I would prefer hot toast!'  Retired writer

Tip:

• This is a great budget dish - the trimmed wings were on special at M&S for £1.75 a packet for a dozen good-sized wings
• 12 cooked wings makes a good 1.25 mugs chopped chicken flesh; half was frozen for future use (chicken pot pie? omelette with gravy? chicken fried rice or noodles?)  The wings could - at a push - cover two meals.

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This recipe has been adapted  by B M Lee/ Bright Sun Enterprises.  It may not be reproduced without the author's written permission.