Shredded Vegetable & Roasted Peanut Salad with Sesame & Ginger Dressing

In Season: Carrots, Mint & Peppers

Recently I’ve fallen in love with Pho all over again, and it is all to do with their delicious shredded chicken salad. Unbelievably fresh, and crunchy, you get layer after layer of flavour (and a huge mound of the salad) for the very reasonable price of £5.95, a real win! Anyway, the point is that since I last had it (two days ago…) I couldn’t stop thinking about recreating a version. The dressing here is adapted from Pho’s recipe (featured on Delicious) and tastes very powerful on its own. When it goes over the salad it becomes more subtle but still retains its impact. Very virtuous, this salad is a real celebration of raw vegetables and is so summery as a result.

For the shredded salad:

• 1/2 cucumber, sliced in half and deseeded
• 1/2 red onion
• 300g white cabbage
• Handful of roasted peanuts
• 1 red pepper & 1 orange pepper
• 1 ripe mango
• Small bunch of coriander
• Small bunch of mint
• Small bunch of spring onions

1) One by one put all of the ingredients, apart from the nuts, into a food processor with the mandoline setting attached.

2) Tip the finely chopped vegetables into a large bowl and toss with the sesame ginger dressing. To make it, whisk all of the following ingredients in a bowl.

• 10 cm fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
• 4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 2 red chillies, deseeded and finely chopped
• 1 tbsp sesame sauce
• 1 tbsp each of rice vinegar, soy sauce & honey
• 2 tbsp water
• Salt, to taste

3) If you are adding any meat to this (we had it with very rare pieces of grilled steak but it would also be good with shredded chicken or pork), then add them now and then finish off with the roasted peanuts and a scattering of finely chopped mint and coriander.

Optional, but delicious, is to serve it with a thai peanut dipping sauce on the side. Again, to make this all you need to do is combine all of the following ingredients in a small blender/food processor:

• 2 tbsp peanut butter (I used Meridian’s 100% nuts version to avoid palm oil & excess sugar)
• 2 tbsp rice vinegar
• 1 Tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tsp sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon sweet chilli sauce
• 2 tbsp water
• juice from 1 small lime