Early on in my professional culinary life I worked for a man who was by far the best chef I have ever met. His name was Christopher Lucien File and he owned a Gourmet shop in Forest Hills, NY called Lucien’s (later converted to Dirty Pierre’s French Bistro) - he was the chef and resident personality until he passed away last November. Resembling a biker dude you find at the rest stops along the thruway in the Midwest, he was big, bald and bad - but man could he cook. And once you got to know him you realized he was once of the nicest people you would ever meet - wild tempered in the kitchen, but a pussycat around the customers.

A Le Cordon Bleu trained chef (and back then it was not that easy to get in), he took his love for food and put it into everything he made - down to his leftover chicken salad and roast beef fajitas. One could argue that he was a smart business man in the way he took unsold food and turned into something new, but he was not - his sister Jamie ran the business aspect - he was a man devoted to creating wonderful cuisine and he did so his way.

I mentioned Chris specifically because of his ability to take what was once a wonderful dish in itself and convert it into a new fantastic creation. I learned more from him about conservation than I did anywhere else, and it was because of his innovative use of creativity that did it for me. It was not merely an economical decision, for Chris, it was art - it was life - and I will forever be indebted to him as a skill like that is not taught in any school yet practiced in many businesses. It is a skill that added 20% to my revenues in my restaurant by minimizing waste while not compromising on quality.

A favorite dish for my kids is chicken soup - they love the broth, some like the carrots and squash - yet none of them really eat the chicken that goes into it. If you knew my soup you would know that it is not uncommon for an entire chicken to be the flavoring behind the rich broth. Perhaps one day I will get to that on these pages, but for now I want to focus on what to do with the chicken - and how in the spirit of Chris I make something wonderful out of something wonderful.

The basics of a chicken salad are the vegetables, celery, carrot and onion along with some mayonnaise, salt and pepper. But by doing this you get a tuna salad that tastes like chicken - in all honesty, I used to hate chicken salad growing up - I thought it was nasty and flavorless. But one fine day in Forest Hills Gardens I was tasked with putting together the salad for Lucien’s - plucking the chicken off the bone and cutting it up along with the leftover grilled chicken cutlets to even quarter inch cubes was daunting since he was such a perfectionist, any deviation in size - or any blood spot from the boney area that I might have left out would be grounds for a yelling, and he knew how too do that well. But in making the dish I grew to love it - as I needed to taste it for proper seasoning - and I instantly fell in love. Perhaps it was the thickly sliced crisp bacon cubes in it - ok it was that, it added a sweet smokiness that just stood out. At that point in my young culinary career I learned about contrasting flavors and how something old can become something new - while being something so wonderful.

In New York as in most places in the world, bacon is not kosher, but those who cannot have the forbidden food try so hard to emulate it. I remember as a kid walking into the kosher supermarket and seeing fake shrimp, a nasty concoction of shredded Alaskan Pollack and seasoning shaped like a shrimp and spray-painted red - ugh!! Anyway, in my search for a bacon substitute so I could make so many of my favorite things at home, I came across a product called beef fry - fatty, thin slices of pastrami that tasted ok but lacked the sweetness of pork fat. It took my move to Israel to find a product that does the trick - it’s not the real thing but it is close in its flavor and texture - you just need to do it right.

Leave it to the Israeli’s to come up with a product that emulates the flavor of bacon so wonderfully - who would think that by using a smoked turkey based sausage mixed with beef fat would be an end to my call to kosherize the pig? not me. the product is called kabanose, and I prefer to use the ones made from Zuglebeck as they have the smokiness and fat content down pat. I believe they have this in the States as well now, but if you can get your hands on the Zuglebeck brand do so.

Chicken Salad

Chicken Salad with "fakin bacon" (the chicken here came from a soup - you can use any kind of leftover chicken to make this salad)

1 pound chicken (use leftovers from the grill or a roast or from a soup)

2 celery stalks

1 large carrot

1 medium red onion

1 large white onion

3 long kabanose or 9 minis

3 tbsp. mayonnaise - Hellman’s is the best.

A few sprigs of fresh sage for garnish

Dice the kabanose into 1/4″ pieces and sauté in a hot pan with a drop of oil (most of the oil will come from the kabanose itself so a light spray of Pam will do fine here. Cook this until it is crispy, keeping an eye on it to make sure it does not burn. Take out leaving the oil in the pan and set aside to cool, lower the flame and place pan back on top.

Dice the white onion and sauté in the kabanose oil until it is a deep golden color. While the onion is cooking, debone the cooked chicken (if there are any bones) and cube into 1/4″ pieces.

Take the celery and carrot and red onion and small dice - about 1/8″ x 1/8 x 1/8.

When the onion is done, mix all the ingredients together - add the mayo, then salt and pepper to taste (I like the five blend pepper - you will too). Place in a bowl and garnish with some fresh sage leaves. If you don’t like sage you can garnish by saving a few carrots, celery, red onion and crisped kabanose and garnish with them after you plate.

BatayAvon!