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Salad Beads in the snow with chicken

"Beads in the Snow" Chicken Salad

Simple, quick, delicate, beautiful, and oh-so festive! This "Beads in the Snow" chicken salad is a great way to wow your guests at the holiday table. It looks like a fancy Christmas ornament, and it tastes amazing!

Maria

Recipe author

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Composition / ingredients

Servings:

Chicken breast

350

Pickles

150

Hard cheese

100

Eggs

Carrot (large)

Pomegranate

0.5

Mayonnaise

Translation table of volumetric measures

Nutrients and energy value of the composition of the recipe

By weight of the composition:

Proteins 48 % 12 g

Fats 36 % 9 g

Carbohydrates 16 % 4 g

148 kcal

GI: 100 / 0 / 0

Cooking method

Step 1:

How do you make "Beads in the Snow" chicken salad for the holiday table? It's easy! Start by gathering the ingredients on the list. Instead of boiled chicken, you can use smoked, fried, or oven-roasted. The dill pickles can be swapped for fresh cucumbers or salted ones. You'll want large eggs; if yours are small, use 4 so there's enough white for the top layer.
Step 2:

Boil the chicken breast in salted water until tender, about 25 minutes. Then pat it dry and cut it into small pieces.
Step 3:

Boil the carrot in its skin until tender, then cool and peel it. Grate it on a coarse grater. I used two small carrots instead of one large one.
Step 4:

Cut the pickles into small cubes.
Step 5:

Grate the cheese on a coarse grater. A firm or semi-firm cheese works here — the main thing is that it's tasty, good quality, with no milk-fat substitutes. I used a regular Russian-style cheese.
Step 6:

Hard-boil the eggs, cool, and peel them. Separate the whites from the yolks and grate the whites on a coarse grater.
Step 7:

Crumble the yolks with your hands straight into the grated cheese and mix well.
Step 8:

Seed the pomegranate. The seeds should be bright red, not pale pink.
Step 9:

Spread the chicken on a serving plate, shaping it into an even circle. Top it with mayonnaise — I transferred the mayo to a piping bag first, to make it easier to apply over each layer.
Step 10:

Next, add a layer of the diced pickles and top with mayonnaise as well.
Step 11:

For the next layer, spread on the grated carrot and top with mayonnaise.
Step 12:

Spread the cheese-and-yolk mixture over the carrot. Top with mayonnaise one last time.
Step 13:

Now spread the grated egg whites evenly over the whole surface in a solid layer, with no gaps showing the layer underneath. You should end up with a smooth white dome that looks like a snowbank.
Step 14:

Decorate the salad with pomegranate seeds to look like strings of beads. If you built it on a white plate, scatter pomegranate seeds around the base too, so it doesn't blend into the plate. Chill the salad in the fridge for 1 hour before serving. Enjoy!

You can swap the chicken for turkey or any other meat you like, but keep in mind the cooking time and calorie count will change.
It's worth making your own mayonnaise; it tastes better and is better for you. You'll find some good homemade mayo recipes here. And you don't have to use mayonnaise alone — sour cream or plain yogurt work too, on their own or mixed with mayo in any ratio you like to cut down on calories.
Tip: if the pomegranate seeds won't stay put on the egg-white layer and keep rolling off, pipe a few thin lines of mayonnaise from a piping bag first, then press the pomegranate "beads" onto them.