Last night was our office Christmas party.  True to form, I drank far more than I intended to – and then left without telling anyone.  They don’t call it an Irish exit for nothing.  Anyway, as you might imagine, today I had a bad dose of The Fear.  And as I ran out the door (late) to meet someone in Brixton this morning, fighting back waves of nausea, smudged makeup still under my eyes, one slice of toast and a cup of ill-advised coffee swilling around in my poor, poisoned stomach, I thought to myself, what the f*ck am I going to do with that roast chicken sitting in my fridge?

Aha. Chicken salad.  Which, aside from being truly delicious, also happens to be a solid hangover cure.  So, here we go:

Ingredients

Salad

200g roast chicken, torn into strips

50g split red lentils

200ml vegetable stock

1 clove garlic, grated

3 roast peppers, peeled

1 red onion, peeled and sliced

250g cherry tomatoes

200g boiled chickpeas

1 ripe avocado

50g sheep’s cheese

3-4 sprigs of mint leaves, torn

zest of 1/2 orange

Dressing

3 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp sesame seed oil

1/2 tsp English mustard

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp black pepper

pinch salt

juice 1 lemon

Method

Step 1: place chicken in a pre-heated oven at 180c for about an hour and a half, depending on weight. Remove, cover with foil and set to one side to rest. When it’s cool enough to handle, tear into strips and add to your salad bowl.

A note on chicken: I buy free range and/or organic chicken – primarily for ethical reasons but they do actually taste a whole lot better too.  You can get a chicken for less than £6 in Sainsbury’s and, given that you can get 4 meals out of it (6 if you use the bones and any scraps for chicken soup), I think that’s pretty good value for money.  And I assure you, I am on a  budget.

Step 2:  cook the lentils in the vegetable stock and garlic on a medium heat for about 15 mins, until the water has boiled off but the lentils still have a teensy bit of a bite to them.   Once cooled, add to salad bowl.

Step 3: place peppers on a roasting tray in a pre-heated oven at 200c for about 40 mins or so, turning once in the middle. About 20 mins in, add a sliced red onion to the tray.   Set tray aside to cool or, if time is of the essence, run peppers under cold water for a minute or two.  Peel, cut into strips and add to the salad bowl, along with the red onion.

Step 4: wash tomatoes and add to salad bowl.  I had mine whole and raw today because I wanted to give the salad some bit, but  I’ve been known to slice or roast them with the peppers.  Whatever takes your fancy.

Step 5: next, add the chickpeas.  I use pre-boiled, canned chickpeas, rinsed and drained.  If you feel like cooking them up yourself, even better.

Step 6: cut open the avocado and scoop out the flesh into the salad bowl.

Step 7: crumble white cheese on top of the salad mix.

Step 8: add zest and torn mint leaves.  I don’t own a zester right now so I’m using the parmesan side of the cheese grater which, as far as I’m concerned, works just fine.

Step 9: mix salad dressing ingredients together in a cup, giving it a good stir to make sure none of the dry ingredients clump, and drizzle over the salad ingredients.

Step 10: mix salad by hand and voila, you are done.

Serves 4 (unless hungover, in which case 2)