DAY 21: Asian-style Chopped Salad on Lettuce Spears

Incredibly refreshing, this is easy to make in advance with no cooking required and easy to modify with whatever fresh ingredients are on hand.

Asian-style Chopped Salad on Lettuce Spears

This is very similar to a traditional Vietnamese cold salad. Make a dressing, add it to chopped vegetables and cold noodles and serve on lettuce leaves for eating by hand.

The dressing is similar to nuoc cham, only they don't add lime juice. Combine garlic, red peper flakes, fish sauce (always use the fish sauce, I know it is stinky at first, but it adds so much!), water, vinegar, and sugar in a food processor. At this point, the recipe calls for switching to a slicing blade on your food processor. I don't have a slicing blade, so I dumped the dressing in a smallish bowl and then thin sliced by hand radish and Walla Wall Sweet onion and put it in the dressing to marinate.

In another bowl, combine cooked, drained cellophane rice noodles, shredded napa cabbage, sliced sausage ( I used Portuguese sausage but you can use any type of chorizo or Asian sausage), sliced basil, cilantro, and mint. The authors usually say cilantro optional in their recipes. I am starting to think they don't like cilantro, but I think it is absolutely essential in any Southeast Asian dish.

When you are ready to serve, mix the dressing/radish/onion blend into the salad and add salted peanuts, crushed if you like, and a chopped apple. The apple was a nice, crispy and juicy touch.

To serve, let guests put their desired amount onto lettuce leaves, add a squeeze of lime, roll up, and enjoy!! This is fun since everybody is active and creating their own little "spears". I also added baby corn and scallions to the serving platter. It would also be good with tofu, chicken, or pork. You could even shread the lettuce and just serve it as a big salad. Next time I would save the lime wedges and just put lime juice directly in the dressing.
Ok, this is Trevor and my friend Jennifer. You can barely see our friend Karen's hand. She was over but was eating a special diet this week so she is eating something different, which is why she is so ungenerously cut out of the picture!

41 recipes down in How to Eat Supper.