Hønsesalat

The story

Hønsesalat, Danish chicken salad, is one of the cold dishes that fill the Easter lunch table between the herring and the warm courses. Skagen Online, a Danish guide to holiday food, lists homemade hønsesalat among the classics of the påskefrokost, next to eggs with shrimp, curried herring and warm tarts. The salad is rich rather than crunchy: cubes of poached chicken, sautéed mushrooms and soft white asparagus folded into mayonnaise loosened with crème fraîche and lemon. A vegetarian version published by the Danish weekly Ingeniøren keeps the white asparagus, the mushrooms and the crème fraîche dressing and swaps only the chicken for fava beans, which shows how settled the combination is. Like most dishes at the lunch, it is eaten as smørrebrød on buttered rye bread, which Lex, the Danish national encyclopedia, describes as the base for open sandwiches at festive meals, with toppings that run from herring to chocolate spread. The same encyclopedia dates the påskefrokost as a family feast to the late 1950s, when it replaced the plain food of the fasting season. In 2027 Easter Sunday falls on March 28. Poach the chicken a day ahead and keep the broth, which also makes the sauce for chicken tartlets.