Stone fruits–summer’s best
{sweet, juicy and highly aromatic}
The perfect marriage of flavors and textures is featured in this seasonal chicken salad. Part of the pleasure of making this dish is the sourcing of the most aromatic tree fruits now available at the farmer’s market. There you will find fruit of every hue from golden yellow and deep crimson to pink-tinged alabaster each with its own distinct flavor profile and mix of sweet/tart flavors. Look for fragrant fruits to accent the complexly flavored tea-smoked chicken. I like to use some of the flat “donut” peaches as shown in the photo but if you’d like, for the greatest visual and taste impact, mix things up by using white nectarines, yellow peaches and deeply crimson plums, with each fruit lending its special perfume to a deeply satisfying salad experience. Make sure that the fruits have a definite aroma and yield easily when gently pressed with a finger. And store them at cool room temperature until ready to use. Refrigerated fruit pales in comparison with direct-from-the-orchard varieties where you can almost feel the heat of the sun still on them.