Summer….

Seeing as it's chucking it down with rain i needed a bit of sunshine...

This is it on a plate.

I didn’t have any chicken, but was just as good with rare beef left over from the weekend

 

Vietnamese chicken salad with Chinese cabbage and bean sprouts recipe

 

This recipe is from Rick Stein's book, Far Eastern Odyssey

Spicy, sweet and sour salads, such as this recipe, appear all over Southeast Asia in one form or another.

You will need:
750g chicken thighs and/or breasts on the bone
100g shallots, very thinly sliced
400g Chinese leaf, core removed and the leaves finely shredded
100g bean sprouts
1 large carrot, halved across and finely shredded
15g Vietnamese mint, or a mixture of coriander and mint, or Thai sweet basil leaves, roughly chopped
40g roasted peanuts, coarsely chopped
Freshly ground black pepper

For the dressing:
3 tbsp fish sauce
3 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tbsp caster sugar
1 tsp very finely chopped garlic
2 red bird’s eye chillies, finely chopped

Put the chicken pieces into a saucepan with 1 teaspoon salt and enough water to just cover. Bring to the boil, lower the heat and leave to simmer gently for 20 minutes. Leave to cool in the cooking liquid. Then remove and discard the skin and bones and break the flesh into long thin strips. Save the stock for another dish.

Put the shallots into a large bowl, toss with half a teaspoon salt and leave to soften for 30 minutes. (skip this bit if you forget, which I always do) Mix together the ingredients for the dressing. Just before serving, add the chicken to the bowl of salted shallots with the Chinese leaf, bean sprouts, shredded carrot, herbs and most of the peanuts.

Pour over the dressing, season generously with black pepper and toss together well. Mound the salad decoratively on a plate and serve sprinkled with the remaining peanuts