Make rainbow salad, Thai style

Mmm, Thai food! I love the complex combinations of salty, sour, spicy, sweet and bitter flavours; I love the beautiful colours, crispy vegetables, aromatic herbs and exciting textures. You could say I find it... en-thai-cing. I won’t pretend that this salad is “authentic”, but it is delicious. It takes a while to prepare, so put on some music and get slicing. You won’t regret it!

Rainbow salad

Your salad ingredients should be sliced finely and evenly so that any given forkful will contain a unique combination of fresh, tasty goodness. You’ll need a good sharp knife (unless you own a mandoline - lucky you). Choose from the following ingredients, making sure to include a range of colours.

• Green beans, lightly steamed, cooled and sliced lengthways
  
• Green snow peas, finely sliced lengthways
  
• Green cucumber, halved lengthways, seeds removed, finely sliced
  
• White Chinese cabbage, finely shredded
  
• White bean sprouts, any straggly bits removed
  
• Yellow grapefruit, peeled and segmented, segments halved
  
• Yellow mango (ripe or unripe), thinly sliced or grated
  
• Yellow capsicum (pepper), finely sliced
  
• Orange carrot, grated
  
• Orange, peeled, segmented, segments halved
  
• Red capsicum (pepper), finely sliced
  
• Red onion, finely sliced
  
• Purple cabbage, finely shredded
  

Herbs

Don’t be stingy with your herbs - they’re really a salad ingredient in their own right. Choose two or more of the following.

• Handful of coriander, chopped roughly
  
• Small handful of mint leaves, chopped
  
• Small handful of Thai (or other) basil leaves, torn
  
• Spring onions (4 or 5), both green and white parts, chopped finely
  

Textures

These ingredients are optional, but add depth and crunch to your salad. Choose one or more of the following and mix them through at the last minute so they don’t go soggy.

• Toasted cashews
  
• Crispy fried shallots
  
• Crunchy noodles (don't use egg noodles if making this salad for vegans)
  

Dressing

This is the final, delicious touch. To create a perfect dressing, you need to balance the flavours both within the dressing and between the dressing and the salad. For example, if your salad has lots of orange and mango in it, you might want to add less sweetness to the dressing. Choose at least one ingredient from each of the following flavour groups, mix thoroughly and experiment to find your ideal combination.

• Salty: light soy sauce (this has a different flavour to dark soy and is not, as I used to assume, some kind of horrible "diet" sauce) and/or fish sauce (which I never use it because I'm vegetarian)
  
• Sour: fresh lime juice, rice wine vinegar, tamarind paste or pulp
  
• Spicy: fresh chilli, fresh ginger, fresh garlic
  
• Sweet: palm sugar, jaggery, soft brown sugar, agave syrup or honey (for non-vegans)
  

I made the following (fairly spicy and sour) dressing for the salad in the photos. Using a soup spoon as my unit of measure made enough dressing for one large serving bowl of salad.

• Salty: 4 parts light soy
  
• Sour: 2 parts fresh lime juice, 1 part rice wine vinegar, ½ part tamarind paste
  
• Spicy: 1 part ginger (grated), 1 part mild red chilli (chopped finely)
  
• Sweet: 1 part palm sugar (grated, dissolved)
  

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This recipe first appeared in Hastings Independent, Issue 27, 3 April 2015, p12.

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For photo purposes only - this is not how you eat the salad!

Green: snow peas, finely sliced. You can slice several at once.

White: bean sprouts. Sorting these can take ages so get super-fresh ones.

Yellow: mango, found on sale or it wouldn't have gone in!

Orange: well, orange. I halved these segments after taking the photo.

That's more like it! Mix it all up and add your delicious dressing!