Vietnamese Prawn Salad
A simple fresh and flavoursome salad
Asian salads are one of my all time favourite foods, from a blisteringly hot beef salad in a market square in Bangkok to a fragrant squid salad on a Singapore quayside they have always been my first choice on any menu in South East Asia.
The brilliant Thai beef salad has been a staple of my menus for a number of years and fully deserves its popularity. Hot strips of fillet steak are served with Asian greens, fragrant herbs and a chilli and garlic dressing flavoured with fish sauce. The dressing is incredibly moorish and very adaptable.
Using the same idea I came up with a starter of prawns, noodles and pink grapefruit tossed with beansprouts, pak choi and lots of herbs (mint, coriander, dill and Thai basil) A few blanched peanuts or cashew nuts are thrown in for texture and finished off with some pickled chillies and roasted and ground rice.
You can use peeled coldwater prawns (shrimp) or just cooked tiger prawns, squid is also excellent as are scallops if you are feeling flush. For meat eaters beef and chicken work well but I would lose the fruit.
Here’s a simple dressing:
2 tbsp fish sauce 3 tbsp fresh lime juice 2 garlic cloves 2 tbsp palm sugar half a small red onion finely chopped (2-3 shallots are even better) 2-3 fresh chillies depending on taste 2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander/cilantro
Take a pestle and mortar, get a big, ugly stone one that weighs a ton and ditch the porcelain thing from British Home Stores. Crush the garlic with a pinch of salt, add the chopped chillies and coriander and give it a bit of a bruising but not a pummelling. Stir in the sugar, fish sauce and lime juice and the finely chopped shallots. Check for seasoning.
The whole idea of this dressing is to achieve some kind of balance between all of the flavours, you can add and take away as you wish, less garlic, more chilli or whatever as long as you retain a combination of hot, sour, salty and sweet.
Mix all of your salad ingredients together then give it a good dose of the dressing, don’t be shy but don’t drown it either. I’ve had one or two in Thailand that have been too mushy because of too much dressing. Don’t let it sit around, freshness is the key.
Miles,
I popped into the ‘other channel’ this morning but now I’m glad to be back … back to the safety of salads! This all sounds fabulous and another one to try.
Where can we find palm sugar in this county? Can’t stop long, I’m off to find a mother of a stone for grinding whilst still retaining its aesthetic appeal!
Cid
September 20, 2007 @ 9:47 am
Cid,
I am sure Sainsbury’s sell Palm sugar as will a chinese supermarket in Lincoln or Grimsby, just supposing you might live nearby!
Miles
September 20, 2007 @ 12:13 pm
Miles,
Where in Lincoln is the Chinese supermarket? This must have escaped my eagle eye and that can never be allowed to happen, so I’ll look for the lanterns, peking ducks (or is that Snipe?)and fire crackers which will lead the way.
The polytunnel palm sugar production isn’t quite off the ground yet then?
Cid - in search of the real thing
September 20, 2007 @ 2:22 pm
Cid,
Past the railway crossing head up the high street (towards Debenhams) down Tentecroft Street on the left at the traffic lights. Shop on the right.
As for the palm sugar plantation, I’ve shelved that idea for a fish sauce production plant.
Enjoy the smell!
Miles
September 20, 2007 @ 3:17 pm
Miles,
I shall wear my Vietnamese rice picking hat and pay that shop a visit.
Reference the fish sauce plant - excellent idea and after a while you won’t notice the smell so they say … please let me know if you would like to borrow the hat, just to keep things authentic you understand. We don’t want neighbours objecting to your lack of suitable uniform
Cid
September 20, 2007 @ 5:44 pm
Cid,
I think the hat would be the last thing the neighbours would complain about!
Miles
September 20, 2007 @ 6:53 pm
Miles,
… Yes, but in a recent poll the local residents of my town voted for noxious gasses in favour of my celebrated hat collection!
Cid
p.s. I’m now desirest of a winter sombrero
September 20, 2007 @ 8:10 pm
Cid,
Re your town folk, they obviously don’t appreciate class when a designer hat pokes their eye out as you walk past-peasants!!
Miles
September 20, 2007 @ 9:52 pm
Miles,
Sounds delicious. I shall throw myself into this Asian adventure. Here I go …
September 21, 2007 @ 8:42 am
Miles,
Someone once knitted me a silver balaclava which looked like chain mail. Strolling around town I must have looked like a viking raider although it didn’t occur to me at the time!
Cid
September 21, 2007 @ 1:28 pm
Cid,
I used to have a balaclava when I was a boy and would never take it off. Looking back I was a pre teen hoodie!
David Cameron would have loved me!
Miles (former imitation bank robber)
September 21, 2007 @ 10:55 pm
Miles,
Have you still got it? I’m not allowed to wear mine … ‘it frightens people and looks ridiculous’ they say, you know, weak excuses like that. ‘I didn’t get where I am today by frightening people and looking ridiculous’ I said, in my new Paul Gilbert ensemble … with a backpack over one shoulder embroidered with ’snipe swag bag’ on one side and ‘the skulking waders’ on the other
Cid
p.s. how did it go with Mr GB?
September 22, 2007 @ 12:01 am
Cid,
Can’t follow that! The last time I saw my balaclava it was being modelled by George Clooney on ‘Oceans Thirty Five’.
I’ve still got the edge on him when it comes to wearing wool.
As for Mr. GB, it was a great experience, two days of learning, grunting and sweating! The man is a monster but a real gentleman. I wouldn’t reccomend training with him immedediatly before a dinner for 260 though.
Miles (aching all over)
September 22, 2007 @ 8:31 am
Miles,
Several things spring to mind. Isn’t balaclava that filo pastry sweatmeat?(mental note, not for Miles, he doesn’t ‘do’ filo!)
So Lincolnshire has a Mr GB, how fabulous and well done for keeping up with him. Our little shooting party is growing all the time …. took the liberty of inviting George purely for his innate sense of camouflage…
Arnica gel Miles, that’s what you need and lots of it. Perhaps you could entice your sports therapist to assist you, I’m sure she won’t mind! It’s either that or one of my prototype garden poultices … sadly the ingredients are not yet ’stable’ and patent is still very much pending
Cid
p.s. notice how we have come from Vietnamese prawn salad to Cid’s herbal poultice … almost full circle!
September 22, 2007 @ 10:34 am
Cid,
I do like the Moroccan dessert/headware you mention ( I serve it with cinnamon ice cream) Not sure if I did keep up with Mr. GB- I was there in spirit but certainly not in body! I’ve not seen my sports therapist for some time now-I could have done with a rub down after the last two days!
Miles (retiring to bed chambers before second breakfast shift of the year)
September 22, 2007 @ 11:00 pm