Recipe: Vietnamese Chicken Salad (Bill Granger)

On Boxing Day (26 Dec), it is common to have leftovers from Christmas dinner for lunch/brunch. We usually cook roast beef for Christmas Day, hence any leftovers would be used to make stovies (a traditional Scottish meat and potato stew). 

If you find yourself with leftover roast chicken or turkey, it would be great to use it in this Vietnamese Chicken (or Turkey) salad.  If you do not have any leftovers, no worries - you can easily use chicken breast fillets for this, roasting will take a mere 15 minutes. 

Vietnamese Chicken Salad

After all the heavy eating on Christmas Day, this salad is certainly a nice change. The dressing made from lime juice, fish sauce, rice vinegar, garlic, shallots and chilli is appetizing and tangy. The salad on the other hand is made up of bean sprouts, Thai basil leaves, Chinese cabbage, carrot and Vietnamese mint leaf. Vietnamese mint leaf is also known as daun kesum in Malay, a herb commonly used in assam laksa in Malaysia. The original recipe calls for 1 cup of Vietnamese mint leaf, however, this herb is pretty spicy, so you may want to reduce it to 1/4 cup. If you do decide to chop it up finely, do it just before serving as the leaf tends to turn black quickly once you cut it. I also decided to use large red chilli for less heat.

Very appetizing dressing

We love the beautiful, attractive colours of this salad and it certainly is refreshing to eat. Would work well as a side dish or even as a main dish for lunch.

Vietnamese Chicken Salad
Recipe by Baby Sumo, adapted from Bill Granger
Preparation time: 15-20 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Serves 4 as main (for lunch) or 6 as a side dish

Ingredients

For the chicken 

2 x 200g chicken breast fillets
1 tbsp vegetable oil
Sea salt
White pepper, or use black if that is all you have

For the salad
1 cup bean sprout, washed and drained
1/4 cup Vietnamese mint leaf (daun kesum)
1 cup Thai basil leaf or basil leaves
4 cups Chinese cabbage, julienned

1 cup carrot, peeled and julienned

For the dressing
4 tbsp lime juice
4 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp rice vinegar
1 1/2 tbsp caster sugar
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3 shallots, finely sliced
1/2 red chilli, finely chopped



1. Preheat the oven to 220°C (roast mode).

2. Season the chicken with salt and pepper. In a frying pan, heat oil over medium high heat. Once pan is hot, place chicken in the pan and sear for 2 minutes on one side, then flip over and sear for another minute.

3. Remove from pan and place chicken on a baking tray. Cook in preheated oven for 12-15 minutes, or until cooked through. To test if the chicken is cooked, pierce in the thickest part and the juices should run clear. Allow to rest for 10 minutes.

Vietnamese mint leaf ( daun kesum)

Other salad ingredients - julienned

4. Once rested, shred the chicken into thin strips using your hands and set aside.

5. To make the dressing, combine all ingredients in a small bowl. Stir until sugar is dissolved.

For the dressing

6. To assemble the salad, arrange beansprouts, carrots, Chinese cabbage and herbs in a large salad bowl. Place the shredded chicken in the centre, then pour over dressing and toss.

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I am submitting this to the "Cook Like Bill Granger" event which I am co-hosting with Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids and Mich of Piece of Cake. To join, simply cook or bake any recipe from any Bill Granger websites or cookbooks for the whole month of November and December 2013. You can link your posts at one of the host's pages.

Your post must be a current post i.e. posted in November and December 2013 - please do not link older posts.Please mention Cook like a Star in your post and link back to Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids, Mich of Piece of Cake and Baby Sumo of Eat your heart out.

Happy cooking! Do check out the other bloggers recipe below:






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