Chinese Chicken Salad seems to have appeared sometime in the 1960's or early 1970's when just about everyone in Los Angeles bought a wok in hopes that gourmet food could be combined with weight watching.  Chinese food seemed to be the answer.  Actor Danny Kaye   had his home kitchen duplicated in a rooftop building at   CBS Television City so he could enjoy his love of Chinese cooking while on a break from taping his show at the studio.

Hundreds of people in the Los Angeles area signed up for classes in Chinese Cookery.  They could study in Westwood at UCLA with Madame Wong and they could study in Santa Monica with Madame Wu .  And when they "ate out" they went to Madame Wong's and heard rock music and they went to Madame Wu's and saw celebrities.  Of course, being mid-century Californians, they wanted a salad with their meals or at least some cold raw crispy vegetables.  The waiter would mention bean sprouts, cabbage, celery, water chestnuts... Well, no, that's not what they wanted.  They wanted a salad...lettuce -- iceberg, romaine, red leaf, green leaf, butter lettuce -- that sort of thing.  Ah, well, that was a problem.   There wasn't any lettuce to speak of in a Chinese kitchen.  To meet the demand, in San Francisco they invented Chinese tacos (a lettuce leaf with chopped squab rolled up inside), but in Los Angeles, they provided Chinese Chicken Salad.

When you think of Chinese Chicken Salad, do you think of rice sticks and slices of red ginger on top?  That's a version of Madame Wong's salad.  Do you think of Chinese Chicken Salad with the crunch of almonds, deep fried wonton slices and bits of deep-fried rice noodles?  Definitely derived from Madame Wu's recipe,  which is currently provided on her website as well as in Madame Wu's Cookbook.    Unfortunately, Madame Wong's books are out-of-print, and you'll have to wait until a used copy becomes available or a reprint is brought out.  Meanwhile, here is the latest version  copied from her most recent book:

1.  Deep-fry rice sticks quickly, a few at a time in very hot oil until they puff, about 1 second.  Drain.  Remove.
2.  Rub chicken with salt and soy sauce.  place in shallow pan.  Pour 1 tablespoon heated oil over chicken.  Roast 45 minutes in 350-degree oven.
3.  When chicken is cool, discard skin and bones and break meat apart with hands into shreds.  Do not cut.
4. Combine first 5 ingredients of sauce in serving bowl.  Mix well.  Add scallions and hot pepper oil (this will make sauce spicy).
5.  Add lettuce, chicken and sesame seeds to sauce.  Toss well.  Arrange rice sticks on top.  Garnish with preserved red ginger.  Serve cold.
*You may substitute crab, lobster, shrimp, or barbecued pork for chicken.

One of the most popular variations of Chinese Chicken Salad is to include  orange segments in the  dish.  Besides adding fruit or vegetables (often snow peas), another change is the use of substitutes, particularly canned Chinese fried noodles, or even cold cooked angel-hair pasta.  The dish can be sweet or spicy, with "5-spice powder" (a Chinese mixture of herbs), hot tabasco sauce, sesame seeds or pine nuts.

Is there another story?  You bet.  Even as I write this, there is a chef in Chinatown, Los Angeles, who is laughing.  I have heard that, if pressed, Wallace Tom and his son Colin say that long before the celebrities in the western part of town discovered Chinese Chicken Salad, they were serving it downtown at the New Moon cafe on West Ninth Street.  And so it goes.  Once again, when the taste buds ripen, the dish appears. Everywhere.
 

Who Cooked That Up? is copyrighted 1998 by J.J. Schnebel
Revised February 2002
all rights reserved for your pleasure and enlightenment

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