Thai Dinner Salad

I wanted a light green salad to go with the chicken curry in coconut milk I was making. This dressing recipe was quite good, but a bit salty.  I think next time I’ll cut down on the fish sauce, but even though it was a bit salty it was still good. And it was the perfect accompaniment to dinner.

The Thai chicken curry in coconut milk I’ve made many times and is basically from the back of the jar of Thai green curry paste. This Thai dinner is salad from The Everything Thai Cookbook: From Pad Thai to Lemongrass Chicken Skewers–300 Tasty, Tempting Thai Dishes You Can Make at Home (Everything Series).

I’ve made curry in coconut milk many, many times and vary the vegetables and protein depending on what I have on hand. Sometimes it’s chicken, sometimes it’s tofu based. Vegetables have been some combination of bamboo shoots, peas, red peppers, green peppers, tomatoes, and baby corn.  I usually pick 2 or 3 of those, aiming for variety of color.  Tonight the curry was with chicken, red and green peppers, a diced tomato and some frozen peas.  After I’d finished the salad, I actually dumped the rest of the dressing into the curry. Mmmm.

Thai Salad Dressing

• 2 Tbs fish sauce
• 1 Tbs lemon juice
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 Tbs water
• 3/4 tsp rice wine vinegar
• pinch of red pepper flakes

This was how I mixed it up. As I said, it was a bit salty for my taste.  I did use rice vinegar and not rice wine vinegar. Would that make a difference?  I will definitely make this again, but perhaps with just half the fish sauce.

Thai Dinner Salad

This is what I put in the salad. I’m not giving proportions because it can totally vary depending on what you feel like. I used red leaf lettuce because that’s what I had. The original recipe called for some chopped unsalted peanuts to top the salad but I didn’t have any so left it out.  Serves 2-4.

• 1 small head Romaine or Bibb or other lettuce, torn into pieces
• 1 carrot, peeled and grated
• 1/2 a cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced
• 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
• 1/4 cup chopped mint (I didn’t have any so left this out)
• some chopped unsalted peanuts (I left this out)

As Kotylo suggests in the cookbook, you could easily add some protein to make this a main dish salad.  Use chicken, tofu or shrimp.