15 Jun 2010 Smoked Chicken Almond Sandwiches
 |  Category: Poultry, Sandwiches  | Tags: , ,

My daughter, Abby, loves this sandwich. She longs for it. Dreams of it. She gets really excited and happy when I make it. I love that about her! Now I am putting it in her cookbook so she can make it for herself in her apartment.

The sandwich is has bold, hearty flavors from chopped smokehouse almonds. I use really good bread from a really good bakery for this sandwich. Don’t marry a from scratch, great quality filling to some cheap, tasteless bread. I suppose you could dress this sandwich up a bit with crisp lettuce and sliced tomatoes, which would probably be delicious, but we’ve never had time. Once we have the filling made, we want to eat a sandwich!

This recipe includes instructions for poaching the chicken, but if you have already cooked chicken, use that. If I am BBQ-ing chicken I always make extra to use in this recipe. The BBQ-ed flavor in the chicken makes the sandwich even better.

The original recipe came from Epicurious.com, but I fixed it! The Epicurious.com recipe is for tea sandwiches, cut with a circle cutter, and then rolled in chopped almonds. NAH! Too fussy. Enjoy it my way!

Smoked Chicken Almond Sandwiches

3 cups chicken broth or water plus 1 1/2 lbs boneless chicken breasts

OR 2 cups chopped cooked chicken (BBQ-ed is especially good)

1/2 cup mayonnaise (original recipe called for 1 cup, but I thought that was too much. Add more mayo if you’d like…)
1/3 cup minced shallot (if you don’t have a shallot use minced green onion OR minced red onion soaked in ice water for 10 minutes and drained before adding to the chicken mixture)
1/2 teaspoon dried tarragon
salt and pepper, to taste (and you will need some)
1/2 cup finely chopped smokehouse almonds (about half of a 6 oz can–chop the nuts, then measure 1/2 cup)

If you need to cook the chicken, in a large skillet bring the water or the chicken broth to a boil. Add the chicken breasts in one layer. Reduce heat and poach chicken at a mere simmer for about 7 minutes. Turn the chicken over halfway through the cooking time. Remove pan from heat and let chicken cool in the broth for 20 minutes. Drain the chicken from the stock. (SAVE the stock-refrigerate or freeze it-to use in another recipe). Discard any skin, and dice the chicken.

In a medium bowl stir together the cooled and diced chicken, mayonnaise, shallot OR onion, tarragon, and diced almonds. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Spread onto that good bread you just picked up from the bakery. Leftover filling can be covered and stored in the refrigerator for about 3 days.

Makes four to six sandwiches (depending on the size of the bread and how much filling you put in each).

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6 Responses
  1. Jocelyn says:

    These are the best sandwiches ever! Just realized I have all the ingredients to make them… guess what I’m having for lunch? I also just realized I shouldnt try to make recipes from memory because the last time I made this I used marjoram instead of tarragon! Three syllable spices are interchangeable right? Good either way, but definitely go with the tarragon…

  2. JPolly says:

    YAY, and I have all the ingredients, too. We can have the same lunch! It’s going to be a good day today! Are you going to post your veganized version?

  3. ratty says:

    hmmmm…, where do i go for lunch… Polly’s? or Jocelyn’s? Polly’s? or Jocelyn’s?

  4. Monique says:

    I’m going to try this with some smoked turkey I have!

  5. Abby says:

    Best sandwich ever!!!

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