Thai cobb salad with fish sauce vinaigrette
Golden Diner's take on the American classic.
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ICYMI, last week I chatted with Sam Yoo of Golden Diner. This week I have a recipe for the Thai Cobb Salad that shows up on their menus everywhere except brunch (all the more reason to avoid the brunch crowds). It shares some similarities with the American Classic (soft boiled eggs & bacon), but it gets a bright twist with the addition of Asian herbs and a zippy, fish sauce vinaigrette.
This, like other recipes I’ve gotten from restaurants, came to with me measurements in grams, so I had to finagle a bit to adapt this recipe for the newsletter. The original recipe calls for cane vinegar, but after visits to 3 stores in Manhattan’s Chinatown, I surprisingly could not find it anywhere. I tested rice wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar, and a mix of both. The apple cider vinegar was the best version to me because it let the fish sauce shine through. But if all you have is rice wine vinegar, that’s fine too. I wouldn’t use white wine or red wine vinegar.
What is pleasing to me about this salad is the crunchy, herby-ness of it all. The dressing links everything together, but I think there’s room here to use whatever you have or other things you’re craving. In the restaurant, this is served with sliced red bell peppers, but the sugar snap peas were calling to me at the market. I think whatever you choose, pick vegetables with a snappy-wet crunch (bell peppers, cucumbers, bean sprouts, sugar snap peas) as opposed to those with a more fibrous crunch (broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts). I don’t think those vegetables are a bad choice, but they lack the wet crunch that the other vegetables have.
Is “wet crunch” weird? Maybe, but I said what I said.
