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If a historical company like Pastificio Berruto asks you to think of a nutritionally balanced one-dish meal for young consumers to be published in the middle of summer, I immediately thought of my kids, of what they would be able to cook on their own and, above all, of what would make them and their friends happy for a summer lunch. Here is my Coronation Pasta Salad.

My recipe draws inspiration from Coronation chicken, a cold chicken dish that was invented by the two women who ran the London Cordon Bleu cooking school for the banquet organised for Queen Elizabeth‘s coronation in 1953. The name is therefore a clear tribute to the event for which it was intended.

In addition to boiled chicken left to cool, the recipe called for dried apricots, curry, mayonnaise and sour cream, as well as other ingredients in smaller amounts. The two ingredients I took the liberty of making changes to are mayonnaise, the amount of which I have drastically reduced, and sour cream, which I have replaced with zero-fat Greek yoghurt. Furthermore, I turned the recipe into a delicious pasta salad.

So, I enriched the chicken with pasta as a source of carbohydrates and cherry tomatoes as a source of fibre and a touch of freshness. In short, a riot of aromas, flavours and colours for a truly royal summer!

Gli ingredienti principali dell'Insalata di pasta Coronation

The main ingredients of the Coronation Pasta Salad

Coronation pasta salad

22.16g carbohydrates per 100g

Ingredients for 4-6 servings

  • 600g chicken
  • 300g gluten-free Penne Berruto**
  • 150g water used for boiling the chicken
  • 85g dried apricots
  • 75g fat-free Greek yoghurt
  • 75g mayonnaise*
  • 1 onion
  • 1 carrot
  • 2 shallots
  • 2 teaspoons curry*
  • 1 level tablespoon of tomato paste
  • The juice of ½ lemon
  • chopped parsley
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 4 peppercorns
  • salt and pepper

**Ingredients specific for celiacs

*Ingredients whose labels must read “gluten-free” (or, in Italy, present on  Prontuario AIC)

Preparation

  1. Boil the chicken breasts in a large pan with the bay leaf, onion and carrot. Add half a tablespoon of salt and the peppercorns; bring to the boil over medium heat and cook for about 25 minutes.  Remove from the heat and allow the chicken to cool in the cooking juices.
  2. Meanwhile, fry the finely chopped shallots in a non-stick pan with a little oil; add the curry and continue cooking for one minute. Add the tomato paste dissolved in the chicken stock, the lemon juice and cook for 10 minutes to thicken the sauce. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.
  3. Remove the chicken from the broth and cut it into fairly even pieces.
  4. Mix together mayonnaise, yoghurt and curry sauce; add chopped apricots and season with salt and pepper.
  5. Season the chicken with the sauce and stir, making sure that it is completely covered by it. Leave it to rest.
  6. Cook the penne al dente in plenty of salted water, drain and dress with the chicken salad. Complete with a few chopped cherry tomatoes and a sprinkling of chopped parsley. Serve the salad warm or cold to taste: it is simply irresistible!

Pasta coronation

Version with gluten of Coronation salad

Replace the gluten-free Penne Berruto with standard Penne Berruto, while the sauce contains only naturally gluten-free ingredients, so no changes are necessary.

Quinoa surprises are a way for me to use vegetables, definitely my favourite ingredients! For each season, we have a great variety of them, allowing us to indulge in their preparation. Yet, sometimes there is a lack of ideas for preparing something tasty in front of which the kids do not turn up their noses.

Round courgettes are loved by young and old alike because they are perfect for filling with anything we like, so mine is just one of hundreds of possible filling solutions.

The version prepared with quinoa, one of Latin America’s super foods (see its history) also popular in our country due to its high protein, Omega 6 and Omega 3 content, makes the recipe a perfect one-course meal for both lunch and dinner. Personally, I prepared the recipe in a vegan version, i.e. without adding melted cheese, and offered it for dinner to my hungry family members, and Gaia’s blood sugar behaved very well throughout the night, which made us enjoy the dish even more.

Quinoa surprises   

carbohydrates 6.2g per 100g

Ingredients

  • 4 large round courgettes (total weight when emptied 1kg)
  • 300g tomato sauce
  • 120g celery
  • 90g carrots
  • 80g quinoa (cooked in 240g water)
  • 70g shallot
  • 1 clove garlic
  • extra virgin olive oil
  • salt and pepper
  • chili
  • cheese cubes melting (optional)

Preparation

  1. Put quinoa in a fine-mesh strainer, rinse it thoroughly, then pour it in a small pan with three times its own weight of water. Slightly salt the water, put everything on the heat and cook the quinoa for about 15 minutes with the lid on until it has completely absorbed the water. Remove from the heat and let it cool down.
  2. Take the round courgettes, cut off the top part so that the courgettes are divided into 2 parts: a small one at the top and the large part underneath from which you will remove the pulp (you can use this to make vegetable soups). Sprinkle the inside of the courgettes with salt, place them with their tops on the side on a baking tray covered with baking paper and bake in a preheated oven at 200°C for 15 minutes. Once taken out of the oven, remove the water that will have formed inside the courgettes, then set them aside while you prepare the filling.
  3. Slice the shallot, put it in a pan with a little extra virgin olive oil together with the garlic clove, then add the tomato sauce and cook for 10 minutes.
  4. Put a little oil in a non-stick frying pan and sauté the diced celery and carrot; season with salt and pepper. Now season the quinoa with the tomato sauce and sautéed vegetables; season with salt, pepper and chilli.
  5. Fill the courgettes with the quinoa, pressing it lightly into them. If you like, you can put a few cubes of cheese melting on top of the quinoa before covering each courgette with its own cap (personally, I did not add anything because I did not want to add cheese to this meal), then bake in a hot oven at 200°C for about ten minutes or for 5 minutes under the grill.
  6. Serve the courgettes hot with a drizzle of olive oil.
Le zucchine ripiene di verdure e quinoa

Courgettes stuffed with vegetables and quinoa

Version with gluten of Quinoa surprises

The recipe contains only naturally gluten-free ingredients, so no adaptation is necessary for its version with gluten.