Vietnamese Chicken Cabbage Salad (Goi Ga Bap Cai) on Sesame Rice Cracker (Banh Trang Me)

JS:
Going through our blog posts, we realized we didn't have a lot of Vietnamese recipes at all. How could that be? We love Vietnamese food: why haven't we been making it at home? A new blog event, Delicious Vietnam, is certainly an opportunity to rectify this situation.

When I butcher a chicken, I usually have several uses for the legs and thighs and can easily transform them into something palatable. The breasts, however, are a different story. I seem to get stuck in a rut with breasts, opting too often for chicken salad or Thai basil stir-fry.

When I don't feel like eating those two options, I find myself in a race against time, before the meat starts exuding that dreadful chicken BO.



TS:
After a quick browse through Wandering Chopsticks, we have killed two birds with one stone by making Vietnamese Chicken Cabbage Salad (Goi Ga Bap Cai).

Chicken


TS:
I was too lazy to poach the chicken breasts, so I cooked them in a pan. So, they're not exactly shredded chicken, but it was all right by me.

Vietnamese Vinegared Onions (Hanh Dam)


TS:
Too bad we didn't have red onions. They would've been prettier. For these pickled onions, it was a matter of adding rice vinegar and sugar to thinly-sliced onions and letting them sit.

Vietnamese Fish Dipping Sauce (Nuoc Mam Cham)


TS:
I normally use our mini food processor for any sort of garlic-choppery, seeing as we like a lot of garlic. But, Wandering Chopsticks recommends using the mortar and pestle. So, Wandering Chopsticks, this mortar and pestle action is just for you! ;)

(Although, I couldn't quite seem to get the garlic ground into a paste. Laziness reared its ugly head once again.)

I mixed together garlic, chile peppers, sugar, fish sauce and vinegar (in lieu of lime juice). I was already in the middle of this prep when I realized that we didn't have any limes in the house! Quel horreur.

Vegetables and Herbs


TS:
I shredded a cabbage head and a couple of carrots. I had half a cucumber in the fridge so I shredded that too.



TS:
Then, I realized that we didn't have cilantro in the house! How is that possible? We did have some Thai basil and some flat-leaf parsley, so that's what I added to the salad.

It was simply a matter of mixing everything together: chicken, hanh dam, nuoc mam cham, shredded vegetables and chopped herbs.



Sesame Rice Cracker (Banh Trang Me)


TS:
There has to be a better English translation because "sesame seed cracker" doesn't quite do these justice.

We first learned about banh trang me on a Food Safari episode. The girl making green papaya salad simply popped one of these in the microwave, then served her salad on it. So, when we saw a package of banh trang me on the aisle while trolling through a Vietnamese supermarket, we snatched it up. This package of sesame rice crackers was fragrant with coconut milk.

Following her lead, here's our chicken cabbage salad on a sesame rice cracker.



Recipe by Wandering Chopsticks:
Goi Ga Bap Cai (Vietnamese Chicken Cabbage Salad)

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Vietnamese Chicken Cabbage Salad (Goi Ga Bap Cai) on Sesame Rice Cracker (Banh Trang Me)
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We are submitting this post to Delicious Vietnam, a blogging event founded by A Food Lover's Journey and Ravenous Couple.

For more information on this first edition of the event, click here.

The round-up will be hosted by Anh of A Food Lover's Journey.