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Water Spinach and Shrimp Salad
Nom Rau Muong ~ "Nohm Rau Moong"

When I started Viet World Kitchen in 2002, one of the initial visitors was a man named Van (he's not Viet), who lives in Southern California. He reported that his Vietnamese wife, Thuy Mac, was an avid cook and sent in some tips from her. He also mentioned a salad that their family frequently enjoys, nom rau muong. (Nom is the northern Viet terms for special event salads.) Thuy Mac often whips up the salad, substituting Western spinach for Asian water spinach (rau muong), a common leafy green that would traditionally be used in Vietnam. Van sent me a description of the salad, and I made it and ate it up. I never got around to posting it on this site.

Just recently, I received a message from Van, who reported that his wife is quite impressed by my cookbook, Into the Vietnamese Kitchen, and that his daughters liked it too. However, Thuy Mac was disappointed that I didn't include a nom rau muong recipe. Van sent me the description again. Here's what he wrote:

One dish my wife makes that wasn't in your book is something simple she calls nom. She boils spinach or rau muong and squeezes out most of the water. Then she makes a sauce of lemon and mam tom [shrimp sauce] and mixes it thoroughly with the greens, and adds a handful of tiny shrimp. Then she sprinkles in some sesame seed browned without oil in a skillet (and we sprinkle some over the rice we eat with it). Sometimes we smash the sesame seeds a little bit in a mortar and pestle. Really simple, but tasty too.

I promised Van and Thuy Mac that I'd replicate their salad and post it online for everyone. I tweaked the dressing a little bit and found that crushing the sesame seeds lends extra richness. I added a little more shrimp than Thuy Mac's handful for flavor and color. Use sweet tasting (not bland) cooked shrimp or poach some raw medium ones and halve them. Not all cooked shrimp are the same!

Serves 3 or 4 as a side salad

1 pound water spinach, trimmed according to instructions in the Note below, or Western spinach leaves
1/4 pound pre-cooked, small salad size (bay) shrimp, briefly rinsed and well drained

Dressing:
2 to 21/2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 teaspoon fine shrimp sauce
1 tablespoon fish sauce
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 to 1 tablespoon water

11/2 tablespoons sesame seeds, toasted and crushed in a mortar and pestle

1. In a large pot, bring a generous amount of water to a rolling boil. Add the water spinach or water spinach, moving it around with chopsticks or a spoon to ensure even cooking. Once it has wilted, about 1 minute for water spinach or 20 seconds for Western spinach, drain it in the colander and flush with cold water.

2. Remove excess moisture from the greens by putting them in a non-terry dishtowel and wringing it several times. (With very tender baby Western spinach leaves, you can do this by the handful and just squeeze on the leaves.) Transfer to a bowl and fluff up and untangle the leaves and stems as much as possible. Set aside to cool. The water spinach may be prepared hours in advance of serving.

3. Add the shrimp to the bowl and combine well.

4. In a small bowl, whisk together the dressing ingredients, starting out with the smallest amount of lime juice and water. Taste and add extra lime juice for tartness if you want to mellow the briny shrimp sauce flavor. Add water if you want to dilute.

5. Use tongs to toss the salad with the dressing. Taste and add any last minute flavor adjustments. Add the sesame seeds and combine well. Transfer to a serving plate, leaving excess liquid behind in the bowl. Serve immediately.

NOTES & TIPS

To trim water spinanch, take each stem of water spinach and snap, twist, or cut off the bottom 4 inches, which tend to be too fibrous to eat. (As a test, try chewing on some of the hollow stem to see how much you should to discard; in general, stems over 1/4 inch wide are too tough.) Cut the trimmed water spinach into 3-inch sections and wash well in several changes of water, discarding any unsavory parts. Drain in a colander.

For a more elaborate, old-fashioned version, combine the cooked water spinach with poached shrimp, blanched bean sprouts, and thinly sliced poached pork skin. Flavor the salad with the tartness of star fruit and the savory pungency of shrimp sauce (mam tom).