Viet World Kitchen

Barley and Asian Herb Salad

There just a few months left of the fresh herb season so I’m trying to find ways to eat up as much of the leaves as I can. Plus, it’s a constant battle with the bugs. Hopefully, I will enjoy more of the herbs than the bugs do.

A while back I wrote about using herbs for a Southeast Asian rice salad. Dried shrimp and a stunning array of finely chopped aromatics were part of the nasi ulam recipe. Then I went to Chimu, a new Peruvian restaurant in downtown Los Angeles. There, the chef presented a barley salad tossed with a green salsa criolla. The dish was called trigo mote, and though trigo means wheat in Spanish, barley was used. The Peruvian barley salad also had bits of beets, feta and leaves of tarragon. It was refreshing.

I’d mostly eaten barley in western soups but the Peruvian treatment made me realize that barley is appreciated as a major grain in many parts of the world. After all, we’d had roasted barley tea at many Korean and Japanese restaurants. Barley is used for the Tibetan staple tsampa. China is one of the world’s biggest consumers of barley as food. Obviously, barley is not just for beer and beef soup. 

Thai Melon Salad

I am at a week-long photo shoot this week for the tofu book, but wanted to share this summertime dish. It's an oldie but goodie in my repertoire of cooking. This is the recipe that got me to seriously think about the potential of kaffir (makrut) lime leaf. That is, it's not  just for curries!

I was introduced to this salad by virtue of having to make it on a regular basis at City Restaurant in Los Angeles, a now-defunct establishment by Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger. I’d answered a Los Angeles Times help wanted ad, and Susan hired me to work the pantry station. That was the first time I had stepped into a professional kitchen. It was 1993.

City’s Thai melon salad was full of salty, sweet, briny, citrusy, hot flavors. We made it with perfectly cubed watermelon, cantaloupe, and honeydew for a beautiful presentation. I was entranced by the sheer beauty and complexity that the ‘fruit salad’ offered. It was a wildly popular dish with customers, and in many ways, way ahead of its time. Few mainstream restaurants were serving fruit with fish sauce back then.

Mary Sue and Susan borrowed the idea from a preparation they’d enjoyed in Thailand. Though I’d never run into the dish at a Thai restaurant or during my travels, all the elements make perfect sense in a Southeast Asian manner. It is a refreshing burst of flavor, terrific for summer and all the melons that are coming into market right now.

Last Sunday, my husband and I brought it as an appetizer to a dinner party. Rory made the dressing and I prepped the melon. Just as I was about to cut the watermelon into perfect cubes, I decided to keep the melon on the rind as wedges. That way, people would have a handy handle to hold and a platform to support the chunky dressing. Plus, there was less waste in terms of imperfect pieces of melon flesh. It made for a novel presentation and I had turned a salad into a finger food. Except for Rory, no one else at the party cared about my cleverness. They just ate it up. Our host poured lots of riesling for a splendid way to start the evening.

Asian Herb Rice Salad Recipe (Nasi Ulam)

There are many wonderful fresh herbs used in Southeast Asian cuisines, and now is the time to start thinking about how to eat them all up! Dave Weinstein, one my recipe testers, tweeted about all the rau ram (Vietnamese coriander) that he had growing in his Washington State garden. “Any ideas for using it up?” he asked me. Ironically, I am having the same problem, and my thoughts went to this refreshing rice salad.

The Malaysian salad actually allowed me to harvest not only the rau ram, but also kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, and mint. I was quite proud of myself for having cultivated those ingredients myself! Adding to that was the remaining sprigs of lemon basil purchased from the farmer’s market last Saturday.  Here's what I got from the garden for this salad:

Sriracha Cabbage Slaw Recipe

Yesterday I had the brilliant idea of buying a rack of pork ribs and marinating them overnight for my husband to grill this evening. The idea was that he’d shoulder most of the work for dinner as I polished my book manuscript! Alas, it started drizzling in the afternoon. We could have kept the ribs in the fridge for another night but decided to go ahead with a warm weather dinner. Just because it is dreary outside does not mean that we have to eat cold-weather food! 

I used a Thai-Chinese marinade for the ribs and wanted an easy side dish. After rummaging through the fridge, I found a partial head of green cabbage. I also found a bottle of Sriracha chile sauce that Pim Techamuanvivit of ChezPim.com gifted to me. I'd been keeping it for a special occassion and this was it! I needed something to brighten up the day.


Panich brand is the original Sriracha chile sauce. It is labeled “Sriraja” apparently due to a trademark dispute. Pim brought it back from Thailand for me to try. If you can get your hands on this stuff, it’s absolutely delicious and well balanced. The medium-hot is what I have and it is not as assertive as the Rooster brand of Sriracha. Panich brand is nice and mellow and along the lines of homemade Sriracha.

After tasting some straight from the bottle, I got a little heartburn. However, the Panich Sriracha was so good that I wanted to eat more. To be prudent, I decided to dress a cole slaw with the Thai chile sauce. It is very simple but you have to finesse it a little because of the different levels of heat in Sriracha. The ground celery seed lends an herby edge that pairs well with the chile sauce. I buy celery seed and grind them myself, mostly for adding to bloody Mary cocktails. And, the fish sauce offers a little umami depth.

Green Papaya Salad with Beef Jerky Recipe (Goi Du Du Bo Kho)

 

Vietnamese green papaya salad comes in two guises and one of them features earthy beef jerky and heady Thai basil (hung que). The other version of green papaya salad is southern Viet and has shrimp, pork and rau ram herb; the recipe is in Into the Vietnamese Kitchen. A northern Viet favorite, green papaya salad made with beef jerky includes slivers of smoked liver and on occasion, lung too. In Hanoi's Old Quarter, I recall a little street full of green papaya salad vendors. I’ve never had the lung in salads in the U.S. Both the jerky and liver are a tad chewy, the liver adding a slight minerally quality to the salad. It’s no great shakes. If you lived in Little Saigon, you’d go to the Vietnamese-Chinese jerky store for the beef and the liver. Or you make beef jerky at home, like I did last week. In my kitchen, I omit the liver and the salad is just fine. 

To dress Vietnamese green papaya salad, you have two options. One is a fish sauce and lime dressing. The other features soy sauce and vinegar. The former yields a salad that is lighter in taste and appearance that the latter. At places like the Asian Garden Mall food court in Orange County’s Little Saigon, it’s common to see the soy dressing. If you watched the movie, Scent of Green Papaya, the dressing is the fish sauce one. Regardless of your dressing, you can serve the salad pre-dressed or with the dressing on the side. Because the soy dressing turns the pale celadon green papaya a sad brown color, I like to let guests dress their own salad. The recipe below employs the soy sauce dressing.