Grilled Chicken Salad with Rustic Guacamole, Romaine and Queso Anejo

This chicken salad has a south-western kick. The dressing can be as made as spicey as you like, depending on the variety and quantity of peppers you use. If you do go with a hotter pepper, make sure you don't overdress the salad and mask the other flavors.

Yield:

Serves 4

Ingredients

1. For the dressing:
2. =================
3. ½ cup vegetable or olive oil, plus a little more for onion
4. 4 garlic cloves, peeled and halved
5. 2 serranos or 1 large jalapeno, stemmed and halved
6. ½ cup fresh lime juice
7. ¾ cup (loosely packed) cilantro, roughly chopped
8. Salt
9. ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
10. .
11. For the salad:
12. =================
13. 4 medium (about 1¼ pounds total) boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
14. 1 medium white onion, cut into ½-half-inch slices
15. 2 ripe avocados
16. 8 cups romaine hearts, sliced crosswise at ½-inch thick
17. 1/3 cup grated Mexican queso anejo or other garnishing cheese (Romano or Parmesan)

Directions

1. Heat oil in small skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and chiles; cook, stirring frequently, until garlic is soft and lightly browned (usually 1 to 2 minutes). Pour oil, garlic and chiles into blender jar or food processor. Add lime juice, cilantro, black pepper, and 1 scant teaspoon salt. Process garlic mixture until smooth.
2. Pour 1/3 of garlic mixture over chicken breasts, spreading it evenly over all sides.
3. Heat a grill pan or gas grill to medium to medium-high heat (or start a charcoal fire and let it burn until coals are medium hot and covered with white ash). Lightly brush or spray onion slices with oil; sprinkle with salt. Lay chicken and onion on grill pan or grill. Cook until chicken is just cooked through and onion is well browned (3 to 4 minutes on each side). Chop onion into small pieces and scoop into bowl. Set the chicken aside to cool.
4. Pit and peel avocados, scooping flesh into bowl with onion. Add another 1/3 of garlic mixture, then coarsely mash everything together with old-fashioned potato masher, large fork or back of spoon. Taste and season with salt (usually about ½ teaspoon).
5. Scoop the sliced romaine into large bowl. Drizzle on remaining 1/3 of garlic mixture and toss to combine. Divide between 4 dinner plates. Scoop a portion of guacamole into center of each plate. Cut each breast into cubes and arrange over guacamole. Sprinkle each plate with garnishing cheese. Serve.

Notes