Recipe - Vietnamese chicken salad

I was watching the Lifestyle Channel the other night & stumbled across one of Bill Grangers cooking shows. It was perfect timing, really.  He made his Vietnamese Chicken Salad which is exactly what me & Mr YourLocalMarkets needed after what seemed like a few too many successive nights of red meat.

The recipe was pretty basic (important for this pretend cook!) so I decided to make it the next night. And the best thing is that there was a lot of food, mostly raw, crunchy & light and I felt great after I ate it. And the next morning I had loads of energy in my spin class. Yey!

Ingredients
Chicken Salad

• 3 pieces 200g chicken breast fillets
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• sea salt
• White pepper use black if that is all you have
• 1 cup bean sprouts
• 1 cup Vietnamese mint leaf
• 1 cup Asian basil leaf or basil leaves
• 4 cups Chinese cabbages finely shredded (I used about 1/4 chinese cabbage & this was HEAPS)
• 1 cup carrot peeled and finely julienned

I also added some crushed peanuts to sprinkle at the end.

Dressing

• 60 ml Lime juice
• 60 ml Fish sauce
• 2 tablespoons Rice vinegar
• 1 tablespoon caster sugar
• 2 very finely chopped Garlic Cloves optional ( I used 1)
• 3 finely sliced red Asian shallots or 1/2 red onion (I only used 1 shallot)
• 2 small very finely chopped Red chilli's remove the seeds if you don't like the heat (I only used 1 chilli & it was hot enough, but I'm a woos sometimes)

Instructions
Salad

• Preheat the oven to 220°C (425°F/Gas 7).
• Heat a frying pan over a high heat, and while the pan is heating, brush the chicken with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
• Place the chicken skin-side down and sear for 2 minutes, turn and sear for another minute.
• Put the chicken on a baking tray and cook in the oven for 8 to 10 minutes. Leave to rest for 20 minutes.
• Shred the chicken into thin strips with your hands and place in a large bowl.
• Add the remaining ingredients and toss to combine.

Dressing
Place all the ingredients in a small bowl and stir until the sugar is dissolved.

Serves 4.  If making it for 2, don't dress the whole salad, just serve it into bowls or onto plates & dress separately & you'll have leftovers for lunch the next day.