I was hesitant about this recipe because I don’t love fish sauce, but this was such a good application and made for a truly delicious salad. We made use of a bit of each of the numerous herbs we got in this week’s shares, as well as carrots and cabbage. The more herbs you can throw into this salad, the more amazing it gets. AND we got to serve some of it to some of our Root Radical farmer friends, Emily and Aric.
I think you could also make this with chicken or tofu, even cooking them with coconut milk as well, you’d just have to cook them differently. Definitely a flexible topping situation. We went for shrimp because this recipe used shrimp and it felt like a nice summery thing to try. Hold onto this idea for later when we start getting hot peppers in our shares!
Gỏi Tôm Bắp Cải (Cabbage Shrimp Salad)
Ingredients
Nuóc Cham (dressing)
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 7 tbsp warm water
- 2 tbsp lime juice (or one lime juiced thoroughly)
- 1/4 cup fish sauce (more or less to taste)
- 1 tsp red pepper flakes OR
- 2 red or green thai chiles, thinly sliced
Shrimp
- 10-12 shrimp deveined and deshelled
- 1 can coconut milk
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 tsp salt
Salad
- 1 small head cabbage julienned
- 3-4 small carrots grated or peeled
- 1 handful mint torn
- 1 handful green onion tops rough chopped
- 1 handful basil and/or thai basil torn
- 1 handful cilantro if you like!
- 1/2 cup dry roasted salted peanuts crushed
Instructions
Nuóc Cham (dressing)
-
dissolve the sugar in the warm water
-
add the lime juice, fish sauce, and red pepper flakes (or thai peppers) and stir/shake
Shrimp
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put the coconut milk, salt, and water into a pot on medium heat
-
bring to a simmer and then take off the heat
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put the shrimp into the pot and cover for 4-8 minutes – shrimp should be firm to the touch and opaque when cooked
-
strain shrimp and place in a container in the fridge to cool
Salad
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toss all the ingredients in a bowl!
Add it all together
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dress to taste with nuóc cham and serve cold