Fish sauce smells pretty, uh, fishy

Another new salad to add to the family repertoire. I made this salad with a slight amount of trepidation back in November, but the kids just wolfed it down and asked for more. I mean, really, trying to cook interesting food for children is a real crapshoot. So, now that I’ve found this recipe, I’m holding onto it with both claw-like hands. As usual, the original, from the Periplus Authentic Recipes series (Authentic Recipes from Vietnam by Trieu Thi Choi and Marcel Isaak, 2005) is given below, as well as my notes in italics.

1 skinless chicken breast (about 100g), stamed or poached until cooked and shredded to yield about 1 cup
½ head cabbage, leaves washed, rolled up and thinly sliced (I usually use red cabbage because it looks so stunning)
2 tablespoons minced mint leaves
2 tablespoons minced polygonum leaves (also known as daun kesum in Malaysia, and maybe Vietnamese mint elsewhere. The cookbook tells me that if you can’t get this particular herb, substitute with equal quantities of mint and coriander leaves)
3 tablespoons fish sauce (be brave; it’ll all come right in the end)
1½ tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
½ teaspoon crushed black peppercorns
2 tablespoons crispy fried shallots (I tend to leave this out because, as much as I love the taste of them, the shallots always get stuck on my back teeth; J doesn’t even like the taste of them)
2 tablespoons crushed roasted unsalted peanuts (I use a mortar and pestle to give an interesting, uneven texture to the crushed peanuts)
1 finger-length red chilli, deseeded and thinly sliced lengthwise (I leave this out for the moment because of the kids)

1. Combine the chicken, cabbage, herbs in a large bowl.
2. (Now this is my own step. The cookbook has you tossing everything, except the shallots and chilli, into the bowl with gay abandon, and adding more sugar to taste, but I tend to take a more nuanced approach to salad dressing.) Combine the fish sauce, sugar, lime juice and pepper in a small cup or bowl. Mix until the sugar is as dissolved as it’s going to get. Don’t worry if it’s still a bit gritty by the time you’ve finished mixing, you won’t be able to taste it in the final dish. Adjust ingredients to taste.
3. Garnish with red chilli and serve immediately. (As mentioned before, I leave out the chilli, then dust J’s and my portion of salad with chilli flakes. Can’t live without them chilli flakes!)

And although I only had the usual white cabbage at hand yesterday, this is what it should look like:

NOTE: Because getting particular herbs can be a bit of a hit and miss affair, when I see the herbs on offer, I grab a whole lot of them, mince them, mix them and freeze them in plastic bags. This way, I always have the herb mix on hand to whip up this salad with leftover chicken. They’ve kept well for 2 months, so far. The herbs, that is.

ASIDE: And in Neo Dark Ages™ news from Malaysia, I bring you the burning of churches and the banning of the use of the word “Allah” by non-Muslims, even though the Arabic word predates Islam and is currently used to also describe non-Muslim deities. I was going to write an entire rant about this, but A Rahman does a much better job in a letter to malaysiakini (Malaysia Now) here. The way it’s going, Malaysia is going to lose its “moderate Muslim country” tag … not that I think certain loud-mouthed and closed-minded factions care. (And, again, you’ll note that the action is being taken to “protect” Muslims from confusion with other gods. Insert appropriate WTF comment here.)