Summer Prawn Salad with Nuoc Nam Cham Dressing

When I went white water ratting a few weeks ago, my friend Kumi and I discovered a chestnut tree by the dock. We went nuts collecting them. Chestnuts come in prickly round shells with porcupine spines. My job was to stomp on them with my hiking boots to break them open and squeeze the chestnuts out while Kumi loaded up a grocery bag full of them. I was a little afraid that one would fall on my head from the sprawling tree, but it was worth the risk.

If anything reminds me of Beijing, it's sugar roasted chestnuts. They are ubiquitous there, sold in sugar stained paper bags at the Wang Fu Jing night market or in wheelbarrows on the edge of campus when I was at Oinghua. I miss how easily they cracked open. I got my mom's friend's recipe to try and replicate those chestnuts in an American style oven. Here we go.

Chestnuts let out steam as they cook, so in order to prevent an explosion, you have to score them. I used a vegetable cleaver, a chef's knife, a serrated bread knife, and finally, a pair of kitchen scissors as scoring tools. I liked the kitchen scissors best. I snipped the pointy tip of each chestnut, then ran the scissors in a line down from that first cut. Try to keep the cut shallow so you don't break the chestnut meat inside. Some say a horizontal cut along the rounded side is better than a vertical cut, but I tried both, and found no noticeable difference when the chestnuts came out of the oven. The vertical scores are a lot easier to do with a pair of scissors through, so I think I’ll stick to that.

After scoring the chestnuts, you soak them in hot sugar water for at least an hour. They'll start to expand during this time, the yellow meat breaking open the cracks. We finish them off in a hot oven, then crack them open and eat. I ate half of these standing over the stove, using the burners as cooling racks for my baking tray, and the other half I turned into soy braised chestnut deliciousness that peeps now want the recipe for, so that'll be coming soon.

Ingredients:

  • 6 or 8 large cooked prawns, peeled & devein (2 prawns leave tails on)
  • 1/2 mango, thinly sliced
  • ½ avocado, thinly sliced
  • 1 red chilli, thinly sliced diagonally
  • 2 shallots (scallions), thinly sliced diagonally
  • ½ cup coriander (cilantro) leaves
  • 1/2 continental cucumber, peeled
  • 8 snow peas, cut diagonally, halved
  • 40g mescalin leaves
  • Sea salt & cracked pepper

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    Nuoc Nam Cham Dressing

  • 1 red chilli, finely diced
  • 1 garlic clove, crushed
  • 2 tablespoons fish sauce
  • 1 ½ tablespoons rice wine vinegar
  • 1 cube palm sugar
  • 1 tablespoon lime juice

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    INSTRUCTIONS:

  • For the dressing, in a bowl combine, ¼ cup water, chilli, garlic, fish sauce, rice wine vinegar, palm sugar and lime juice, mix well, and set aside.
  • Prepare all salad ingredients as above.

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    To Serve

    On two serving plates or bowls, divide the mescalin leaves and place in the middle of each plate. For each plate arrange on top of the leaves, three avocado slices, three cucumber slices, 2 slices prawn, 3 slices mango, 4 snow peas, then scatter half shallots, coriander leaves and 3 chilli slices. Top with 2 more slices prawn and arrange remaining ingredients through the salad. Stand a prawn with tail on – on top of each salad and drizzle over some dressing and serve extra dressing on the side if desired.




    Recipe from Temptation For Food.