Back to Sides
Gỏi Bắp Cải
Serves 4 Prep 20 min Cook 15 min Total 35 min Type Side Origin Vietnamese

Gỏi Bắp Cải

Gỏi bắp cải is the Vietnamese cabbage and chicken salad you find at family gatherings: poached chicken shredded into ribbons of crunchy white cabbage, lifted with mint, Vietnamese coriander and a sharp lime and fish-sauce dressing. Light, fresh and built for hot weather.

Serves 4 Prep 20 minutes Cook 15 minutes Units Rate

Overview

Poached chicken is shredded and tossed with finely shredded cabbage, carrot and onion that has been softened in a light vinegar bath. A bright nước chấm style dressing brings everything together and toasted peanuts and fried shallots finish the top. The trick is balance: the salad should be crunchy, not waterlogged, and the dressing should taste sharp on its own before it hits the salad.

Ingredients

Chicken

  • 2 chicken breasts (about 400 g total)
  • 1 thumb-sized piece of ginger (sliced)
  • 2 spring onions (cut in half)
  • 1 teaspoon fine sea salt

Salad

  • 400 g white cabbage (very finely shredded)
  • 1 carrot (medium, julienned)
  • 1 red onion (small, very thinly sliced)
  • 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
  • ½ teaspoon caster sugar
  • A large handful mint leaves
  • A large handful Vietnamese coriander (rau răm) or regular coriander
  • 2 tablespoons crispy fried shallots
  • 3 tablespoons roasted peanuts (roughly crushed)

Nước chấm dressing

  • 3 tablespoons lime juice (about 2 limes)
  • 3 tablespoons fish sauce
  • 3 tablespoons caster sugar
  • 4 tablespoons warm water
  • 2 garlic cloves (finely grated)
  • 1 bird's-eye chilli (finely chopped, seeds in for heat)

Method

Stage 1 - Poach the chicken

  1. Place the chicken breasts in a saucepan with the ginger, spring onions and salt. Cover with cold water by 2 cm.
  2. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat. Once bubbles break the surface, reduce the heat to low and cook for 10 minutes.
  3. Turn off the heat, cover the pan and leave the chicken to finish in the residual warmth for 10 minutes. The internal temperature should reach 74 °C.
  4. Lift out and cool. Shred into thin strips by hand along the grain.

Stage 2 - Soften the onion and dress

  1. Combine the red onion with the rice vinegar and sugar in a small bowl. Toss and leave for 10 minutes. This takes the raw bite off the onion and dyes the rings pink.
  2. In a jar, shake together the lime juice, fish sauce, sugar, warm water, garlic and chilli until the sugar dissolves. Taste: it should be aggressive on its own.

Stage 3 - Assemble

  1. In a large mixing bowl, combine the shredded cabbage, carrot, the pickled onion (drained) and the mint and Vietnamese coriander leaves.
  2. Add the shredded chicken.
  3. Pour over three-quarters of the dressing and toss thoroughly with clean hands or tongs for a full minute. The salt and acid will start to wilt the cabbage slightly. Taste and add more dressing if needed.
  4. Pile onto a serving plate. Scatter the fried shallots and crushed peanuts over the top.

Notes

  • Cabbage cut: Slice the cabbage as fine as you can. Thick shreds stay tough and don't carry the dressing. A mandolin set to 2 mm is ideal.
  • Don't pre-dress: Mix the salad only when you are ready to serve. Dressed cabbage releases water quickly and loses its crunch within 30 minutes.
  • Rau răm: Vietnamese coriander has a peppery, citrus edge that's quite different from regular coriander. Asian grocers stock it; if you can't find it, use regular coriander with a few extra mint leaves to compensate.
  • Chicken texture: Hand-shredding gives more surface area for the dressing to cling to than knife-cut pieces.

Variations

Prawn version: Replace chicken with 300 g cooked prawns, halved lengthways. Beef version: Use 300 g rare-cooked flank steak, sliced thinly across the grain. Vegetarian: Skip the chicken, double the cabbage and add 200 g pan-fried firm tofu cut into batons. Use soy sauce in place of fish sauce.

Serving

Serve with: prawn crackers (bánh phồng tôm) or as a starter before a noodle main. Garnish with: extra herbs, a wedge of lime and a few slices of red chilli.

Storage

  • Best eaten immediately after dressing
  • Undressed components keep separately for 1 day refrigerated; assemble just before serving
  • Leftover dressing keeps 1 week in a sealed jar in the fridge

More like this

1 / 4
Tom Yum Gai Soup (Hot and Sour Chicken Soup)

Tom Yum Gai Soup (Hot and Sour Chicken Soup)

When you go out for Thai food this is sure to be on the menu. I love the spiciness of this soup, you get a good hit of spice but it doesn’t linger. Some chefs add sugar to it but, for me, this is a spicy, savoury and tart soup with only a hint of natural sweetness from the fried shallots and tomatoes. Do, of course, taste the soup and adjust the flavour to your liking, adding sugar if you want. It makes a delicious starter but you could bulk it up by adding other ingredients such as noodles to make it a light main. The word ‘gai’ means chicken, so this is a chicken tom yum soup. You could substitute prawn (shrimp) stock and prawns to make a delicious tom yum goong, or go vegetarian and use water and tofu.

Soups 30 minutes Serves4-6
Andhra Chicken Curry

Andhra Chicken Curry

Chicken thighs are marinated briefly with turmeric, ginger-garlic paste, yogurt and a pinch of red chilli. A dry-roast of poppy seeds, sesame seeds, coconut, fennel, coriander and dried red chillies is ground with a splash of water into a coarse paste. The base is built with shallots, curry leaves and tomato; the chicken is browned in stages; and the masala paste is folded in for the long, gentle simmer. Tamarind and a curry-leaf temper finish.

Indian 1 hour 35 minutes Serves4-6