Spicy carrot salad with delicious Thai flavors.
Thai Carrot Salad
by Sue Lau | Palatable Pastime
Love Story: What can you say about a 24-carat salad that was ate almost immediately, and all at once?
(Make it again, Sam?) 😉
This is a salad that really moves through my kitchen, so hence the movie line ripoffs (neither are exactly what was said in either movie…) and it is a genuine love story, in that I can make this fast, and watch it disappear even faster. And I could watch this happen again and again and again.
I’ve been on a diet (well, at least some of the time) since the first of the year, and this is one of the things I like about being on a diet: my love for fresh vegetables that don’t need to taste like the front lawn (which is covered in snow at the moment by the way!) Most carrot salads usually come out shredded, and for good reason. It makes them easier to chew. And it is kind of hard to dive a fork into a whole baby carrot uncooked, even if they are deemed “petite.” So blanching with cook them just a tiny bit and also allow the flavors of the salad to more easily get inside, since it reduces the density of the vegetable.
And what flavors do we want in there?
You know me. I love all sorts of food (maybe why I can’t simply define myself to one cuisine other than “simply good food”), and one of my favs is Asian cuisine, so Thai it is. And I like these type of salads so much that you may have seen me do a bean sprout salad recently as well, and may see others in the near future. I was going to do the bean sprouts as Korean, and still have that on my mind. I am also beginning to think about some of the Asian slaws I like, among other things. So keep an eye out for that.
If you are looking for excellent things to serve this with, I might suggest things like a banh mi sandwich, or Korean bbq ribs or a selection of Chinese dim sum appetizers. It’s pretty versatile, even with a smoked turkey sandwich for a brown bag lunch. I do hope you like this one. I do!
~Sue
Thai Carrot Salad
Ingredients:
- 12 ounces fresh petite baby carrots
- 1/2 cup rice vinegar
- 1-1/2 cups water
- 1 tablespoon fish sauce
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro
- 1/2 fresh jalapeno minced (optional)
Dressing ingredients:
- 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
- 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
- 1 tablespoon peanut oil
- 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
- 1 teaspoon lemongrass paste
- 1/2 teaspoon basil paste
- 1/2 teaspoon minced ginger root
- 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
- 1-1/2 teaspoons honey
Method:
- Place 1/2 cup vinegar, 1-1/2 cups water, fish sauce and soy sauce into a saucepan and bring to a boil.
- Add carrots and blanch one minutes, then drain.
- Whisk together dressing ingredients and toss with carrots, jalapeno and cilantro.
- Refrigerate 1-2 hours before serving; serve chilled.
From the kitchen of palatablepastime.com
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Thank you Sue! I have most of the ingredients except for the carrots. LOL They’re on my grocery list.
Looks like it fits into my new healthy lifestyle! Where would I find lemongrass paste and basil paste. Do they come in tubes?
Lemongrass paste comes in a tube. You can get basil paste in a tube as well or make your own. The lemongrass is harder to do though. Find it in the fresh produce section of supermarkets near the packages of herbs. ~s