This week’s dish was inspired by my work taking me across to Sydney for a few days for a client of mine who also had a client that needed some help with catering. It just so happens to be that this other client was Chin Chin.

Soo all week I’ve had the absolute pleasure in working with some of Australia’s best produce and one of Australia’s best chefs. I’m lucky in my job as a consultant that I get to work with such amazing people.

This dish was inspired by one of the dishes I had while I was in Sydney I tasted this amazing roasted pork bun that had an Asian slaw in it and I thought wow I’d love to do this without the bread and add snapper and prawn and make it salad.

This salad would also be great with the wings of the snapper deep fried and then tossed through but at the moment I’m trying to stay healthy so I whipped up this little baby. you could try this with roasted pork and prawn or even roast duck or boiled chicken it’s also amazing on its own. Apple here is nice it freshens the salad, lots of herbs is important if you’re going to skip something on this don’t skip the herbs also green mango makes a really nice addition.

Ingredients

Serves 5-6 people

Time approx. 30 mins depending on your knife skills

Vietnamese Slaw

½ wombok cabbage, finely shredded or torn

½ carrot, cut into julienne

½ large cucumber, cut into julienne

½ small daikon, cut into julienne

½ small salad onion, sliced finely

100g bean sprouts

1 long green chili with seeds, sliced into rounds

1 long red chili with seeds, sliced into rounds

3 tablespoons fried shallots (store brought is best)

3 tablespoons roasted peanuts, crushed

¼ bunch coriander, washed stalked removed stem left on and roughly chopped

¼ bunch Vietnamese mint leaves, torn

¼ bunch mint leaves, torn

¼ bunch Thai basil leaves, torn

1 tablespoon Lao Gan Ma chili oil

Nuoc cham

190ml fish sauce

250ml sugar syrup (150ml water warm, 100g sugar dissolve sugar in water)

130ml fresh lemon juice

500gm snapper fillets skin on bones removed

5 king prawns, heads and tail on middle shell removed

60ml peanut oil

Once you have all the ingredients chopped and all the herbs picked this salad is a really easy one to put together depending on your knife skills this could take some time but trust me it’s worth it.

Mix all salad ingredients except the chili oil in a bowl and set aside. To make the Nuoc Cham mix all ingredients together and taste. It should be sweet, sour and salty, set aside.

Place a pan on a medium high heat and add the peanut oil, once the oil begins to shimmer cook the fish skin side for 3 minutes undisturbed. Using a fish slide gently turn the fish over and cook for 2 more minutes remove and rest the fish on paper towel. In the same pan turn up the heat and add the prawns cook for 1 ½ minutes on each side remove and allow to rest with the fish.

Simply toss the salad with about 100ml of nuoc cham and the chili oil, mix well.

This part is up to you, you could flake the fish through the salad or you could do as I have done and chop the prawn through it (with the head as this is where all the flavour is but I understand if you’re not keen) Then sit the fish on top, either way it’s delicious and if you really want to go a step further you could marinate the fish and prawns in yellow curry paste and yes you can buy it I’m not going to hold that against you.