What's the surprise?

The following is another recipe from the Southern Living Casseroles Cookbook.

I looked it up because I am trying, unsuccessfully, to reproduce my favorite chicken salad of all time, the chicken salad from The Gourmet Shop of Columbia SC. I can't do it. I've tried. I can't find a similar chicken salad here in DC, and I can't even find one up here I actually like. So I've gotten desperate.

Erica asked if I could make said attempt into a casserole, and for whatever ungodly reason, there are many "Chicken Salad Casserole" recipes. Which unnerve me. That's like mixing two completely different things. 

So I wanted to share the following recipe from the SLCC, to prove to Erica I'm not making this up. The following is not the Gourmet Shop recipe; instead, it's the Chicken Salad Casserole recipe from the SLCC. Just in case you need to make two things at once: a sandwich filling and a dinner.



Chicken Salad Surprise

2 cups diced cooked chicken

2 cups diced celery

.5 cup minced green pepper

2 tablespoons minced pimiento

1 tablespoon minced onion

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

2 tablespoons lemon juice

.5 cup mayonnaise

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 cup crushed potato chips

1 cup grated cheese

Slivered almonds to taste [honest to God, they had me up to here. how do you know how many slivered almonds you'll need until you hit your taste threshold? 5 slivers? 10slivers? a cup? a hogshead? a kelvin? a hectare? a parsec?]

Combine all ingredients except potato chips, cheese, and almonds, and place in a casserole. [Having lost me at "almonds to taste," I'm now gone. I know what this statement means: that you have a specific dish that is dubbed your "casserole dish," or, for short, your "casserole." However, this sounds like you mix everything together, then cram it into a broccoli-cheese casserole. Or a ham-lima bean-sprinkle casserole.]

Top with potato chips and cheese and sprinkle with almonds. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. 6 - 8 servings. [That doesn't seem like much. I think this could go to 45.]

And now, here at the end, they've lost me again. Because I don't really understand why chicken salad needs to be turned into a casserole, or why you need to add potato chips to ANYTHING.

But maybe that's the surprise. That sometimes things need potato chips as a garnish, or that you need a chicken salad casserole, the same way you need a meatloaf cocktail, or a screwdriver sandwich, or a tuna noodle pudding.

Surprise!