Speaking about salad, everyone would think of a healthy option with spinach, tomatoes and creamy sauce. On the other hand, Asian cuisine, especially Vietnamese, also has salad as their popular dish. Vietnamese salad, or ‘Nộm’, has a wide range of recipes with distinctive flavor.
While the key ingredients in Western salad are vegetables and dressings, Vietnamese version is slightly different. It has several dishes, but it often serves with sliced green papaya and carrot, mixed with sweet and sour fish sauce. It may sound simple, but this dish has been made into assorted ways and become a well-known food in Vietnam.
Vietnamese salad cannot be missed on any table.
Firstly, the most popular one could be jerky salad. Unlike the sour taste of green papaya, this dish is a little spicy by adding jerky beef. On top of the salad is crunchy roasted peanut and herbs like oregano or basil to enhance the flavour. Mixing up everything, you will have an addicting combination of sour and spicy that will make you eat non-stop.
Lastly, jelly salad is also a must-try dish. A bowl of jellyfish contains green papayas, lotus seeds, green mangoes, shrimps, and obviously, chopped jellyfishes. After being washed carefully, these jellyfishes will be soaked into ginger extract water. Dried squids, shredded chicken and peanuts are the seasonings for the crispy jellyfishes to melt into your mouth. This dish is truly an ideal light snack for a summer day.
