Chargrilled Salmon Salad (Vietnamese)

Tonight's supper is a salad of fresh herbs, pickles and marinated rare salmon with fried shallots and garlic chips and topped with peanuts and nuoc-cham. I served it with rice and kropek (shrimp crackers).  I thought it was amazing, but unfortunately my boyfriend doesn't like herbs or most veggies, so he ate only the fish, nuts and fried shallots and garlic and it made me feel horrible to throw out everything, but that's the price to pay when I want a salad, and that salad was worth it, so without more talking, here is "Chargrilled Salmon Salad" simplified and slightly modified, from the book "The Food of Vietnam" by Luke Nguyen.

(serves 2 people)

Marinade for 200g salmon fillet, skin removed:

-1 garlic clove, chopped

-2tsp sugar

-1 1/2tbsp fish sauce

-1 red bird's eye chilli, chopped

-150 g pickled vegetables (I didn't use the recipe from the book, I used a mix of cucumber sticks and mostly Dua Gia pickles - not the ones on the picture, I changed my mind later - recipe here: http://danangcuisine.com/recipes/dua-gia-vietnamese-pickled-bean-sprouts-recipe/)

-1 handful watercress, roughly cut

-a couple perilla leaves, mint, parsley...  roughly sliced

-1tsp fried garlic chips (recipe follows)

-3tbsp nuoc-cham (I use this recipe: http://danangcuisine.com/recipes/recipe-2-vietnamese-dipping-sauce-cach-pha-nuoc-cham/)

-1tbsp roasted peanuts

-some fried shallots

-one bird's eye chili, thinly sliced

First, mix everything for the marinate until the sugar has dissolve.  Coat the fish and marinate in the fridge for 20 minutes to a couple hours.

Meanwhile, let's make the garlic chips.  Slice some garlic as thinly as you can (you only need a tsp for the recipe, but if you want to fry more, it keeps well).  Heat some oil to medium high, enough to contain the garlic, then fry the garlic until slightly golden and remove fast and let dry on a paper towel.  When the oil is drained, they'll become crisp.  If you don't have store-bought fried shallots like me, you can use this recipe to fry shallots too!

When you're ready to eat, grill your salmon (I used an oiled ridged pan) and char the salmon only 2-3 minutes on each side, keeping the center rare.  Remove from grill or pan and let cool down and rest 5 minutes.

Flake the salmon in a bowl with the watercress, herbs, pickles, garlic chips and nuoc-cham, mix everything together and top with peanuts, fried shallots and chillies!

And there you have it, a fancy-ass restaurant style salad!