Thailand has a variety of salad choices which includes the 4 main categories of preparation – yam, tam, lap and phla. Thai salads often do not have raw vegetables or fruit as their main ingredient but use ingredients like minced meat, seafood or noodles instead. And like the spicy shrimp salad, this catfish mango salad is a seafood salad originating from Thailand.
Lime juice and the presence of fresh herbs and greens are normally used in Thai salads. Unlike in Western culture, Thai salad is served as main dishes instead of at the beginning of a meal.
This catfish mango salad is also known as Yam Pla Duk Foo in Thai. Where Yam means salad, Pla means fish, Duk means catfish and fu means fluffy. In Yam Pla Duk Foo, the crunchy and fluffy catfish is combined with a spicy blend of red onions, garlic swimming in a lime juice, green mango, peanut along with a fish sauce.
Ingredients (4 servings):
- Thai chillies, to taste
- 2 tablespoon finely chopped palm sugar
- 2 tablespoon fish sauce
- ½ shallot, thinly sliced
- 2 tablespoon lime juice
- 1 heaping tablespoon dried shrimp, chopped
- 1 sour green mango
- 2 tablespoon chopped cilantro
- 250 g fish meat of any kind
- A pinch of salt or 1 teaspoon soy sauce
- 3 tablespoon roasted peanuts
- Oil for frying
Directions:
- Cut the fish meat into small chunks and season it with soy sauce and a pinch of salt.
- Steam the fish until it is completely cooked.
- Set the fish aside to cool.
- Pound the Thai chillies in a mortar and then add in palm sugar.
- Mash the mixture till it turns into a paste.
- Then, add in fish sauce and lime juice into the mixture.
- After the sugar fully dissolves, transfer the final paste into a bowl and add in chopped dried shrimps, mango and shallots. Set the mixture aside.
- Wrap a cloth around the fish and try to squeeze out all the liquid in the fish.
- Pound the fish until there are no chunks left and its texture is fluffy.
- Heat the oil in a big wok until it reached 400°F.
- Sprinkle half of the fish into the oil.
- Tuck the edges of the fish and dip it down for it to fry evenly.
- Remove the fish from the oil when it turns golden brown.
- Place the fish on a paper towel to drain off the oil.
- Serve the fish on a plate and top it with roasted peanuts.
- Add in chopped cilantro into the mango salad and place it on the side of the plate.
- Enjoy this delicious salad with rice!
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