Uyen Luu's Vietnamese Chicken salad

I don't know how often you turn to Asian-inspired salads at this time of year but I find myself making them more and more. Here's a classic Vietnamese salad from Uyen Luu's Vietnamese to inspire you.

Uyen writes: "This is a version of a classic salad that is seen at all celebrations, even if it is a weekend gathering.

Don’t let that stop you from enjoying a burst of flavour on a weeknight. You can use up a leftover roast chicken or buy a cooked rotisserie chicken. You don’t have to poach the chicken from scratch if you have leftovers.

Prep the vegetables beforehand and assemble when you are ready to serve.

CHICKEN SALAD WITH SUGAR SNAP PEAS, VIETNAMESE CORIANDER & SHALLOTS

GỎI GÀ HÀNH TÍM ĐẬU HÀ LAN

Serves 6–8

For the salad

1.5 kg (3 lb 5 oz) whole corn-fed, free-range, organic chicken

400 g (14 oz) sugar snap peas, thinly sliced lengthways

10 radishes, thinly sliced

10 Vietnamese coriander (cilantro) sprigs, leaves picked (or Thai basil, mint or coriander), roughly snipped

small handful of coriander (cilantro), roughly chopped

handful of roughly chopped pistachios

seeds of ½ pomegranate (optional)

For the shallot pickle

4 round shallots, sliced as thinly as possible

3 tbsp cider vinegar

1 tbsp caster (superfine) sugar

pinch of sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the dressing

5 tbsp crushed pistachios

3 bird’s eye chillies, de-seeded and finely chopped

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

3 tbsp maple syrup

5 tbsp lime juice (from about 2–3 limes)

5 tbsp fish sauce

To serve

prawn crackers

Fill a very large saucepan with 3 litres (100 fl oz/ 12½ cups) of boiling water, season with salt and add the chicken. Reduce to a simmer, cover and poach for 60–80 minutes (depending on the size of your chicken) until the juices run clear when you pierce the thickest part of the thigh and the chicken is cooked all the way through.

Meanwhile, reserve some pistachios to garnish, then mix together all the remaining dressing ingredients in a screw-topped jar and shake well.

Taste for the balance of sweet, sour, salty and heat and adjust as necessary.

To make the shallot pickle, mix the shallots with the vinegar, sugar and a pinch of salt and pepper in a small bowl. Set aside for about 20 minutes.

Mix the radishes, sugar snap peas and any other vegetables you’re using in a large salad bowl.

Add the Vietnamese coriander.

When the chicken is cooked, leave to cool. Tear off the meat along the grain and season with pepper. Add this to the salad bowl along with the pickled shallots and its juices.

When ready to serve, toss the salad together with the dressing. Garnish with the coriander, pistachios and pomegranate seeds. Serve the salad with the prawn crackers.

Note

—† Try swapping out the sugar snap peas for carrot, papaya, kohlrabi, daikon, courgettes (zucchini), mangetout (snow peas) or a combination of your favourites.

—† You can use the chicken stock to make a delicious chicken rice.

What to drink: My favourite wine choice with Vietnamese food is an Austrian grüner veltliner but an off-dry riesling would also work well.

Extracted from Vietnamese by Uyen Luu (Hardie Grant, £22) Photography: Uyen Luu

Kimchi and Gochujang skillet eggs

If you're a kimchi addict you'll love this spicy way of serving eggs from Ed Smith's fabulous book Good Eggs. And if you're not it should convert you! 

Ed writes: Taking much inspiration from a Korean kimchi jiggae (stew) these eggs are packed with flavour and extremely convenient. Sliced tteok (thin, pleasingly chewy and bouncy discs made of rice flour) are available online if not near you and provide heft and texture to the dish. You could alternatively (or additionally) serve these eggs with plain rice or scoop it up with any fresh, bouncy or pliable bread.

For 1

Oil for frying

50-60g (1 3/4-2 1/4 oz) bacon lardons (optional)

1 spring onion (scallion) sliced finely on a diagonal, whites and greens kept separate

100g (3 1/2 oz) kimchi, larger bits roughly chopped

2-3 tbsp kimchi brine

1 tbsp gochujang

60g (2 1/4 oz) sliced fresh tteok (Korean rice cakes)

2 medium eggs

1/3 tsp gochugaru pepper flakes or another chilli flake)

1/2 tsp toasted sesame seeds

Pour a hint of oil into a 20-22cm (8-9in) frying pan (skillet) set over a medium high heat. Before the pan is hot, add the lardons, if using and let these render and fry for 5 minutes until beginning to colour and crisp. Add the white parts of the spring onion, cook for one minute more, stirring, then add the kimchi, kimchi brine, gochujang and 100ml (scant 1/2 cup) water. Simmer for 5 minutes until the liquid in the pan is around 1cm (1/2 in) deep.

Scatter in the rice cakes, then make wells in the centre between mounds of kimchi and crack the eggs into them. Reduce the heat a little, cover and gently simmer for 2 1/2 - 3 minutes until the whites are set. Remove from the heat. If the whites aren’t firm by this point keep the pan off the hob but return the lid and check again after 30-60 seconds.

Scatter over the gochugaru flakes, sesame seeds and spring onion greens. I like to eat this with a spoon straight from the pan.

Also consider

• Draping 1-2 slices of burger cheese over the top or grating over some parmesan. Honestly.
• If you have instant dashi powder, make this more brothy (like a jiggae) substituting the water with 400-500ml (1 3/4 - 2 cups) dashi
• Omitting the rice cakes and serving with instant ramyun noodles

What to drink: Depends a bit when you're eating it. If at breakfast maybe a cup of genmaicha. Later in the day, a lager. 

Credit: Good Eggs by Ed Smith (Quadrille, £22), Photography © Sam A. Harris

 

Scallop Ceviche

If you're looking for an impressive dish for Valentine's Day try this delicious scallop ceviche from Rick and Katie Toogood's Prawn on the Lawn: Fish and Seafood to Share. (It feeds 4 but I'm sure you can manage it between you!)

Prawn on the Lawn started in London as a seafood bar and fishmonger and now has an outpost in Padstow, Cornwall.

Rick writes: "Martin Morales, owner of the amazing Ceviche restaurants, really opened my eyes to the process of ‘cooking’ fish by using citrus. It was just before we opened the Islington branch of POTL that Katie and I at at his awesome restaurant on Frith Street, London. For us, not having any cooking facilities in the original POTL, this was the perfect way to enhance the flavours of our fresh fish and shellfish without using any heat.

‘Tiger’s milk’ is the Peruvian term for the citrus-based marinade that cures the seafood in a ceviche. In Peru, this invigorating potion is often served in a small glass alongside the ceviche and is believed to be a hangover cure as well as an aphrodisiac."

Serves 4

For the tiger’s milk:

1 stick of celery, roughly chopped

1 garlic clove

1 fresh green chilli

juice of 3 small limes

½ a thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, peeled

9 sustainably sourced scallops, roes removed, thinly sliced into discs

seeds of 1 passion fruit

1 fresh red chilli, deseeded and finely diced

a handful of coriander (cilantro) leaves (use micro-coriander, if you can find it)

Using a food processor or blender, blitz all the ingredients for the tiger’s milk thoroughly. Pass through a sieve, to remove the pulp, and set the liquid to one side.

Lay the scallop slices out on a serving plate and pour the tiger’s milk evenly over the top, making sure each slice is covered. Drizzle the passion fruit seeds over (try to get roughly 1–2 passion fruit seeds on each scallop), sprinkle with the red chilli and garnish with the coriander leaves. Serve immediately.

What to drink: Peruvian wines are few and far between so I'd go for an aromatic Argentinian Torrontes with this dish. Rick and Katie suggest champagne or sparkling albarino.

Extract from Prawn on the Lawn: Fish and seafood to share by Katie & Rick Toogood, published by Pavilion Books. Image credit: Steven Joyce.

Romy Gill's lamb harissa

One of the most beautiful and original books that has been published recently is Romy Gill's On the Himalayan Trail which focusses on the food of Kashmir and Ladakh. Here's her recipe for lamb harissa which - surely a bonus for meateaters - is commonly garnished with a sheekh kebab. I also like the idea it's a brunch dish!

Romy writes: "Harissa is better with lamb, but it can be made with chicken, too. Traditionally, the harissa is cooked overnight and served up at family brunches – it’s a staple of many Kashmiri households. I’ve cut down the cooking time here, but the result is just as delicious.

SERVES 10–12

INGREDIENTS

SUNFLOWER OIL, FOR DEEP-FRYING

500 G (1 LB 2 OZ) SHALLOTS, THINLY SLICED

1 KG (2 LB 4 OZ) LEG OF LAMB

2.5 LITRES (87 FL OZ/10 CUPS) WATER

12 GARLIC CLOVES, PEELED

11/2 TEASPOONS SALT

2 TEASPOONS GROUND GINGER

1 TABLESPOON FENNEL SEEDS

6 WHOLE CLOVES

8 CM (3 IN) CINNAMON STICK

10 GREEN CARDAMOM PODS

6 BLACK CARDAMOM PODS

6 BLACK PEPPERCORNS

75 G (21/2 OZ/GENEROUS 1/3 CUP) RICE FLOUR

250 ML (81/2 FL OZ/1 CUP) MILK

4 TEASPOONS GHEE, TO SERVE

Pour sunflower oil into a deep, heavy-based pan to a depth of 8 cm (3 in). Place over a medium heat and heat to 180°C/350°F on a digital thermometer. Alternatively, you can drop in a tiny piece of bread: if it sizzles and browns in 15 seconds, the oil is hot enough.

Once the oil is hot, carefully add the shallots to the pan and deep-fry until crispy and brown. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside to drain on a plate lined with paper towels.

Place the lamb leg in a large pan. and add the measured water. Bring to the boil and skim off and discard any scum that rises to the surface. When the broth is clear, add the garlic cloves, salt, ground ginger and all of the whole spices. Cook over a low heat for 3–4 hours, or until the meat falls away from the bone.

When the meat is cooked, remove from the heat and strain the cooking stock into a jug, discarding the whole spices. Remove the flesh from the bones and set the meat aside to rest.

Add the rice flour to the stock and whisk to combine, then place it back in the pan over a low heat. Add the milk and the cooked meat, and cook for at least 1 hour, stirring frequently, until the gravy is smooth.

Leave to rest before eating. In Kashmir, they eat it warm, hot or cold. When ready to eat, divide among bowls. Heat the ghee and pour it over the harissa, then serve garnished with sheekh kebabs and the crispy fried shallots.

For the sheekh kebabs

SERVES 3–4

INGREDIENTS

1 KG (2 LB 4 OZ) MINCED (GROUND) LAMB (IDEALLY LEG MEAT)

2–3 TEASPOONS KASHMIRI CHILLI POWDER

11/2 TEASPOONS SALT

1 TEASPOON DRIED MINT

1 TSP GROUND CUMIN

1 TEASPOON SAFFRON STRANDS

1 TSP BLACK CARDAMOM SEEDS, CRUSHED TO A POWDER IN A PESTLE AND MORTAR

1/2 TEASPOON BLACK CUMIN SEEDS, CRUSHED TO A POWDER IN A PESTLE AND MORTAR

HANDFUL OF FRESH CORIANDER (CILANTRO) LEAVES, CHOPPED, PLUS EXTRA TO SERVE

1 LARGE EGG, LIGHTLY BEATEN

TO SERVE

SLICED SHALLOTS

LIME WEDGES

CHUTNEY OF YOUR CHOICE (OPTIONAL)

Combine all the ingredients, except the egg, in a large mixing bowl. Mix together, kneading as you would a dough, until well combined. Cover and refrigerate for1 hour.

Remove from the refrigerator, then place the mixture in a food processor. Add the egg and blend to a paste.

Divide the mixture into 6 equal-sized portions. Wet your hands with cold water and mould each portion around a skewer, gently pressing and shaping each into a long sausage. With damp hands, smooth the surface of each kebab.

Meanwhile, prepare a barbecue or preheat the oven grill (broiler) to high.

Cook the skewers on the hot barbecue or under the grill for 8–10 minutes, turning them after 5 minutes and rotating them frequently until well browned and cooked on all sides.

Serve scattered with coriander and sliced shallots, with lime wedges for squeezing and a chutney of your choice, if you like.

What to drink: Romy suggests drinking chai with this (the Noon Chai in the book) but if you wanted to drink wine I'd choose a mellow aged red like a rioja gran reserva or a mature Lebanese red

Extracted from On the Himalayan Trail by Romy Gill published by Hardie Grant. Photography by Poras Chaudhary and Matt Russell