Gỏi gà (Vietnamese Chicken Salad)

 

This is a great weeknight meal for those times you don't feel like cooking. If you do want to cook, grilling up a couple of chicken breasts is no big deal. An easier option would be to just grab a rotisserie chicken and shred up some breast meat. My local grocery store, Jerry's, makes it even easier. Whenever they have leftover rotisserie chickens, they cut each of them up into 8 pieces and sell them the next day as oven roasted cold chicken. 

Then there's the veggie part. Since I'm already being lazy by not cooking, I add to my laziness by buying shredded cabbage and carrots. That means my vegetable knife is only needed for slicing red onion and chopping cilantro.  Now that's easy!

The only difficult ingredient in this recipe is the fried shallot, which is an important pantry item if you are big on Vietnamese cooking. Actually fried shallot or fried red onion will work...readily available online or any Asian grocery. Now these are not the breaded variety like French's Fried Onions. They are made by simply frying the raw vegetables in hot oil. That is actually easy to do if you are so inclined. They add a delicious crunch to the salad. But again, I prefer the lazy way, so I buy mine in bulk from Amazon.com.

INGREDIENTS

For the Salad

1/2 medium red onion, cut into thin slices

2 tablespoons rice vinegar

1 pound boneless chicken breasts, cooked, chilled and shredded

1/2 medium green cabbage (about 20 ounces), shredded

1 large carrot, shredded or julienned (4 to 6 ounces)

1/2 bunch fresh cilantro, stems and leaves, chopped

3/4 cup fried shallots

For the Dressing

1 clove garlic, minced

1 large lime, juiced (2-1/2 tablespoons of juice required)

1/3 cup rice wine vinegar

2 tablespoons fish sauce

2 tablespoons sugar

DIRECTIONS

1. Pickle the onion. Combine red onion and rice vinegar in a bowl. Mix well and let sit for 15 minutes.
2. Place pickled onion in a large salad bowl and discard leftover rice wine vinegar.
3. Add all other salad ingredients to bowl and toss.
4. Make the dressing. Combine all dressing ingredients in a  small bowl. Whisk to mix throughly until all sugar is dissolved.
5. Pour dressing over salad and toss thoroughly to mix. Then serve.

Wine pairing: Sauvignon Blanc