Tim and I have been craving some of the awesome dishes we had while traveling around Vietnam... we decided we would give one of their super fresh, spicy, salty, sweet and crunchy salads a go. I found local (well, local-ish; from Aceh) pomelos at the grocery store and thus pomelo salad it was.
Pomelos are massive; I think the one I bought was about 2 lbs. They have a super thick rind and pith, over an inch in most places. The flesh is pretty great, too... like a mild grapefruit (not as puckeringly tart), and although quite juicy, the little sacs don't break when you pull it apart, so, as you can see from my photo, the juice doesn't get all over everything.
Strangely the cookbook we bought from Morning Glory restaurant in Hoi An didn't have a pomelo salad recipe, but the internet was full of options. I decided to go with this one from Appetite for China, supplemented with some sauteed shrimp, briefly marinated in fish sauce per Steamy Kitchen's directions.
An awesome dish, perfect for a hot summer night (or any night here, as they are all hot). Crunchy from the carrots and roasted peanuts, salty from the fish sauce, spicy from the chili, sweet/tart from the pomelo and fragrant from the mint.
