#fishsauce

I love learning how to cook from my in-laws, especially when it comes to learning how to make some traditional Vietnamese dishes. It’s summertime and one of my favorite things to eat is a salad. Normally people just toss some greens into a bowl with some toppings and dressing, but instead of eating the typical salad I was craving for something that was both hearty and refreshing. 

In comes the mango salad that includes some ingredients straight from our garden! Because this is a homemade recipe, there really isn’t any sort of measurement that’s used. We just added more or less of something that we liked to eat. 

Ingredients: 

- At least 2 mangoes that aren’t yet ripe. They should be hard and crunchy.

- Shredded carrots

- Sliced cucumbers (fresh from our garden, treated with salt and water so that it’s salty, crunchy, and flimsy)

- Grape tomatoes (fresh from our garden)

- Mint

- Fried green onions for some added crunch

- Boiled pork, sliced thin

- Boiled shrimp, halved

- Peanuts

- Fish sauce

- Spicy chili (optional)

There’s not a lot of cooking involved in this dish. It’s just a lot of peeling and chopping, so it’s a great salad to practice your knife skills! You want to slice the mangoes into thing strips that are similar in size (perhaps slightly thicker) than the shredded carrots. The cucumbers were treated using a technique that my father-in-law showed me which is basically bathing the sliced cucumbers in a salt bath. After the cucumbers have bathed for a good minute or two, you squeeze out the excess water and then rinse it under running water. Then you repeat it again until the cucumbers are flimsy but crunchy. I’ve never treated my cucumbers this way before, but this is a game changer and made the salad even more distinct and delicious!

One other tip is to hold off adding the fish sauce, peanuts and fried green onions until you’re about to serve. You don’t want the peanuts of fried green onions getting soggy. There are also some people who may prefer more or less fish sauce as well.

I love glass noodles. These clever little slithers - surprisingly - made of mung beans and not the usual rice are exactly what I feel like on a hot day in South London. This particular lime-drenched salad strongly reminds me of our Thai honeymoon. Each evening, living island life, we went to eat supper in a makeshift restaurant essentially over the forecourt of a petrol station. There were a couple of little kiosks, brightly coloured plastic stools, rickety tables and the glorious option for BYO. Each of these stalls were operated by women who giggled at our incessant requests to add more chillies and avid quizzing of cooking techniques. There was one especially beautiful lady who specialised in vermicelli noodle dishes and she was my absolute favourite. So long as the food is delicious (is indeed it was, limey, fishy and super fresh) I would eat almost anywhere. These are blissful memories. 

I’ve gone a bit off culinary piste here and used leftover chicken from a lovely french hen we roasted last night. Stripped from the bone, roast chicken is fine to add to any dish like this, is frugal and very tasty. In keeping with the off piste direction I threw in fresh mint and basil. Traditionally Yum woon sen would call for coriander leaves and roots. I’m not a fan, so there you go. Another note on the choice of ingredients: don’t be shy of the dried shrimp or fish sauce. These provide the funk you need with the clean plain flavours of fresh cabbage and noodles. 

Using up leftovers or any loitering ingredients you have kicking around is so very satisfying. I love nothing more than releasing succulent meat from a bird to use in a new meal. I suppose I’m naturally stingy. Both the process of stripping a carcass and enjoying a thrifty supper are thoroughly recommendable. Equally, the celery leaves (which are actually very authentic here) would otherwise have been wasted. Hurray.

120g raw peanuts

2 cloves of garlic, peeled

20g palm sugar

20g fish sauce

70g lime juice

1 fresh birds eye chilli

1 dried long red chilli

10g dried shirmps

150g vermicelli / mung bean noodles

150g left over roast chicken, chopped

20g celery leaves, finely chopped

150g white cabbage, finely shredded

5g mint and basil leaves

Firstly roast the peanuts in a dry pan over a moderate heat. They can burn easily so keep a close eye on business. Remove from the pan immediately to cool. Using a blender or nutribullet, combine the garlic, palm sugar, fish sauce, lime juice and chillies. This should be totally smooth. Now add the dried shrimp so it can rehydrate a little as you prepare the rest of the salad.