Thai Chicken Salad
Asian Chicken Gluten-Free Recipes Salads Retete Fitness
When I first read about this salad I was thrilled. So many greens and protein in a single plate... Then I put the chicken in the pan and got demoralized. It looked desolate, whitish and watery. Then I added the sauce, grated the frozen hot pepper (Jamie Oliver's genius idea of saving and using hot peppers) and the meat started to taste good, but it still didn't look very appetizing. Everything made sense when I added the ground peanuts, which completed the taste and thickened the sauce. In the original recipe, toasted rice powder is used to thicken the sauce, but a special rice is needed for that, so I replaced it with ground peanuts, they are more accessible. After that I just built layers of greens and aromatic meat and it turned out what I had imagined from the beginning: Larb Gai, an aromatic, easy-to-eat salad.
Ingredients
400g chicken meat (I used 200g thighs and 200g breast)
1 stalk lemongrass (or 10g grated ginger paste)
25g roasted peanuts
50 ml lime juice (or lime and lemon mix)
2.5 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon salty soy sauce
1 level tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon chili flakes (or 1 red hot pepper, frozen)
8 lettuce leaves
1 small elongated red onion (or shallot; about 30g)
4 young green onions
10g parsley (or cilantro)
5g mint leaves
salt
Servings: 2 large
How to prepare thai chicken salad
- The chicken meat is either passed through a meat grinder (with large-hole disc) together with lemongrass (or ginger); or chopped finely by hand and then, together with lemongrass/ginger, put in a food processor and pulsed a few times to mince well.
- Crush the peanuts well in a mortar or give them a few pulses in a food processor or coffee grinder, until you have powder and small pieces.
- In a small cup mix the lime juice, fish sauce, soy sauce and sugar until the sugar dissolves.
- Cut the onion into thin slices. Then mix with the green onion cut into fine rounds and the coarsely chopped parsley and mint (you can tear them by hand if you want). Sprinkle a little salt and mix with your hand to separate the red onion.
- Roll the lettuce leaves like a cigar and cut into strips.
- In a wide well-heated pan put 3 tablespoons of water and the chicken meat. Fry on high heat, stirring constantly and pressing with a spoon to break the meat into small pieces, until the meat is white everywhere (don't fry longer). If you have water in the pan alongside the chicken pieces, drain it.
- Put the pan back on the stove and when it heats up again, add the sauce from the cup. Boil on high heat for 2 minutes, stirring frequently. Don't let the meat brown this time either, even if you still see sauce in the pan, it's ok. The idea is not to dry out the chicken meat too much, especially if using only breast.
- Transfer the pan contents to a bowl, with all the sauce. Add the peanuts and mix. Add the chili flakes (or even better, grate as much as you want from the frozen pepper; it will result in hot pepper powder). Let the mixture cool for 5-10 minutes. Taste for salt, lime juice and chili. The mixture should be sweet, sour and spicy to your taste. The sauce will thicken slightly from the peanuts.
- In one or two bowls put layers of lettuce, over which sprinkle from the onion and herb mixture and then from the chicken mixture. Layer so that you get a small mound, making each layer in the center of the bowl with a smaller diameter than the previous one.
