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

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.
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.
Remove the chicken from the broth and cut it into fairly even pieces.
Mix together mayonnaise, yoghurt and curry sauce; add chopped apricots and season with salt and pepper.
Season the chicken with the sauce and stir, making sure that it is completely covered by it. Leave it to rest.
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!

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.

Preparation

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Serve the courgettes hot with a drizzle of olive oil.

Courgettes stuffed with vegetables and quinoa

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