EASY CAMP RECIPE: Vietnamese Chicken Salad, Gỏi Gà
Good salads should never be hard find. But its increasingly becoming more and more difficult to find a salad at any fast casual restaurant that isn’t at some ridiculous price for a few leaves, a few nuts, a protein, and dressing. I should never have to chose between being able to get two hamburgers for the price of one salad. The current meteoric rise of inflation hasn’t helped. Because of the Great Salad Dilemma™, we tend to make our own salads at home and at camp.
The Vietnamese are incredible salad makers. Their forever quest to have dishes that have incredible flavor balance and mouth feel; sweet, sour, salty, crunchy, soft, and unctuous, make for the perfect checklist for an awesome salad.
Enter this Vietnamese chicken salad, gỏi gà. It’s cheap, to make, has incredible textures, and quite frankly is delicious.
This salad is traditionally paired with Vietnamese rice porridge. The Vietnamese LOVE freshness to accompany anything hot or soupy. It cuts through all the unctuousness and creates a wonderful fresh crunch to offset the hotness of soup noodles, or in this case, rice porridge. You can find my campified recipe of it here.
We recently went on a trip with Bound for Nowhere exploring some not-so-well-known parts of the southwest. We knew we were going to camp higher up with it being a little chillier so MAK and I, cooked up this salad and its accompanying rice porridge. You can watch this video of our adventures!
INGREDIENTS
Cole slaw, Gỏi Gà
SERVES 4-6
Prep time: 15 minutes
2 cups cooked chicken
8 cups of cole slaw mix
2 cup pre-julienne’d carrots
1/2 a red onion, sliced
1 cup loosely packed cilantro coriander, rough chopped
1 cup loosely packed thai basil, rough chopped
1 cup loosely packed mint, rough chopped
1 cup fried onions
1 cup roasted peanuts
Dressing, Nước Mắm
1/2 cup fish sauce
1/2 cup lime juice
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp of ginger paste
1 cup water
fresh red Serrano pepper, chili flakes, or chili paste
DIRECTIONS
Mix together the fish sauce, sugar, lime juice, water, ginger paste, and spice of your choice. Taste it once everything is incorporated. Add more sweetness, saltiness, or acidity to you preference. I consider my fish sauce to be a combination of the sweet from southern Vietnam, and the savory intensity that comes from the central region of the country.
This salad is traditionally enjoyed with Vietnamese rice porridge. The chicken from my camp rice porridge recipe is used to add the protein into this salad. You can find the rice porridge recipe here.
In a big salad bowl mix together the 8 cups of bagged cole slaw mix, 3 cups pre-julienne’d carrots, 1/2 a sliced red onion, 1 cup of loosely packed cilantro coriander, rough chopped, 1 cup of loosely packed thai basil, rough chopped, 1 cup loosely packed mint, rough chopped, 1 cup fried onions, and 1 cup roasted peanuts. Mix together so it evenly distributes all the ingredients.
Before serving, dress the salad and, again, throughly mix together.
Nestled amidst the lush plateaus and misty mountains of Vietnam, the charming city of Dalat unveils a tapestry of beauty that captivates the senses. Known as the "City of Eternal Spring," Dalat is a hidden gem beloved by travelers seeking tranquility, breathtaking landscapes, and, of course, gastronomic wonders. During the French occupation of Vietnam, French citizen would often flock to the cooler temperatures of the mountainous region of Dalat to as a get-away from the usual hot and humid climate of the cities and jungle below. This is the reason many buildings look French and have that small French town vibe.