Pomelo salad - Nhoam Krauch Thlong

A refreshing and healthy salad enhanced by grilled coconut flakes, crunchy peanuts, fried shallots and minty leaves. I bet you can't find a better recipe to loose weight and enjoy the colors of the summer.

Ingredients for 4 persons (time: 1 hour)

• 300 g pomelo
• 70g dried shrimp, soaked, drained and coarsely pounded
• 150 g of fresh shrimps, blanched or steamed
• 50g peanut, roasted and coarsely pounded
• 70g shredded coconut or thinly sliced, roasted (without oil) over low heat
• 50 g mint, panicaut and basil leaves (mince coarsely half of them; for the other half, keep only the leaves for garnish)
• 5 garlic cloves, thinly sliced and fried
• 5 shallots, thinly sliced and fried
• Oil
• Mint leaves

Sauce

• Depending on the sourness of the pomelo: 2 tbsp palm sugar or 2 tsp of tamarind juice
• -2 or 3 tbsp fish sauce
• 2 garlic cloves

Use a mortar and pound the garlic cloves; add the fish sauce and the 10 ml of pomelo juice. Depending on the sourness of the pomelo, either add sugar (if the pomelo is too sour) or the tamarind juice (soak the wet tamarind in 3 tbsp.of warm water; use your fingers and extract the puree from the tamarind; discard the seeds).

Preparation

• Peal the pomelo and break into quarter pieces and set aside. Be careful not to break them into too small pieces as once we mix with other ingredients, they tend to disaggregate and you want to keep the pieces as a whole;
• Place the thinly sliced or shredded coconut in a pan and heat over the low-heat until golden.
• Fry the chopped garlic and shallots with oil until golden.
• clean and remove the shells of the shrimps; use a knife to cut up the back of the shell, then proceed to devein. Cut into half (lengthwise). Clean with water. Blanch or steam the shrimps (about 7 minutes until they are not transparent anymore); set aside.
• In a large salad bowl, toss the pomelo, the cooked shrimps, dried shrimp and add the sauce;
• Before serving, toss the roasted garlic, shallots, the roasted coconut, the peanuts and half of the herbs then mix quickly. It is important to keep the the roasted ingredients only for the last phase as we want to have a refreshing and surprising combination of taste and sensation: a salad that is both juicy (the pomelo) and crispy (the coconut, roasted garlic, shallots and peanuts).
• Garnish with mint, panicaut and basil leaves and serve quickly