HOW TO MAKE VIETNAMESE LOTUS ROOT PORK SHRIMP SALAD | Gỏi ngó sen tôm thịt

Goi cu sen/ Vietnamese pickled lotus root salad

INGREDIENTS:
For salad
3 small carrots ( or 2 medium)
1lb of asian daikon root
1 lb of lean pork
15 to 20 medium size shrimp
1 jar of pickled lotus rootlets
1 bunch of Vietnamese coriander (persicaria odorata or rau ram)

For serving
Roasted peanut for garnish
Vietnamese sesame toasted rice cracker (Bánh tráng mè)

For dipping sauce
Fish sauce
4 cloves of garlic
3+ Thai chili (depend on spicy level)
2" ginger knob
Sugar
Lemon

For picking carrot and daikon
Vinegar, sugar and salt

*For cooking meat
Ginger
Green onion

COOKING INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Shell and devein shrimp; clean and boil (around 3 minutes until shrimp turn pink). Slice the shrimp into half and set aside.

2. Boil the pork meat with ginger & green onion to get rid of the gamey smell. To check if the pork is fully cooked, take a steak knife and stab through the meat, if no red blood comes out, it is fully cooked.
While the meat is cooking, you can prepare the carrot and daikon first and so it will have time to pickle.
Once the meat is cooked, take the meat out and soak in clean cold water to cool down. Sliced the meat into bike size and set aside.

4. Peel and julienne the carrot and daikon into bite size, then soaked them in a pickle mixture to mature for about 15 minutes. Drain and squeeze the moisture out.
*Pickling water: 4 cups of warm water, 1 cup of vinegar, 1 tablespoon of sugar, 2 tablespoon of salt, stir to dissolve*

4. Take the lotus rootlet/ stem out from the jar and shredded thinly. You can use the Thai chili pepper later or discard it (I like spicy food so I usually keep it and mix it together with the salad. Squeeze the juice out as much as you can and set the lotus rootlet aside.

5. Soak the Vietanamese coriander (rau ram) into salt water for 5 minutes to clean, rinse again after to clean. Pick the leaf and discard the stem.

6. Mix the pork, shrimp, carrot, daikon, lotus rootlets, and Vietnamese coriander together. Your salad is done.

MAKING DIPPING/ DRESSING VIETNAMESE GINGER SAUCE.
Pound the garlic, ginger, Thai chili until desired texture
(I like to taste the ginger and garlic so I leave the pieces a little bigger, if you are afraid to bite into the ginger, I would recommend a little more pounding)
Add sugar
Add lemon juice
Add fish sauce
** The sugar, fish sauce is adjusted based on your taste, you can start with 1/4 cup of fish sauce, 3 tablespoon of sugar and adjust slowly. The sauce should taste sweet and salty with a strong ginger flavor.

HOW TO SERVER.
Roughly chopped the roasted peanut as garnish
Vietnamese rice sesame cracker (Bánh tráng mè) as side garnish. You can use another type of rice cracker as a replacement.

Enjoy!

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