To experiment with our favourite flavor of the season, the mango, we called on KUNAL CHANDRA, Chef and Food & Beverage Communications Specialist to teach us a few tricks of the trade. Armed with exciting experience in global cuisine, he left us smacking our lips with this savoury Thai mango salad. Easy to toss together, and an absolute treat to the palate, this salad will have everyone begging for seconds.
For a really great Thai mango salad, picking out your mangoes is the most fun part. So head out to your local market and look for the hardest, greenest mangoes you can find. If you're having trouble selecting the right one, just ask for the pickle variety of mangoes, and you're good to go.
Once your mangoes have been rinsed thoroughly, grate them down with the skin still on; it will give your salad that fresh yellow-green colour, and add lovely texture to every bite.
The typical Thai salad calls for catfish, but you can really use any fish that’s flaky and can be friend to a crisp.
The fish creates a whole different twist to the salad. Slice your fish of choice into thin, long slivers, and then deep fry in hot oil. (As an alternative, you can also choose to bake the fish before deep frying).
And now for the dressing: As you might have noticed, we didn’t add masala to the fish – that’s because all our delicious flavour will come from the salad dressing!
De-seed and squeeze the juice of one lemon into a cup.
To give the salad a more full-bodied flavour, add a full teaspoon of fish sauce.
Slice up one hot red chili, ideally of the Bird's eye variety.
Then add some sugar, and stir it until it fully dissolves.
And voila! Your dressing is ready to go!
For a quick garnish, bunch up some fresh coriander and use a sharp knife to chop it fine.
Finally, lightly roast some peanuts and then crush gently. Your initial movement should light enough to just to remove the skin - which you can then blow off, and then crush further.
Your salad is now ready to serve; we just need to plate the dish!
Toss in a few slivers of fish into the salad bowl before topping it up with mango.
Pour a generous serving of dressing over, and finally garnish with peanuts and coriander.
Enjoy the rainbow of flavours - sweet, tangy, salt and savoury; this salad brings together the quintessential flavours that are trademark of lovely Thailand.
As we licked the bowl clean, Kunal explained why this is one of his favourite dishes, “With the onset of Summer, there is a certain urgency to taste the first mangoes, even though you know the first few batches are not always ripe. This Thai salad allows you to slake your mango-lust and use the raw mangoes to toss up something absolutely delicious!”
source:http://in.lifestyle.yahoo.com/photos/thai-raw-mango-salad-slideshow/thai-raw-mango-salad-photo-1338201856.html