Tangy Thai Salad with Canned Tuna? It’s Delicious!

I adore Pok Pok, the Thai street food restaurant in Portland that has now expanded to NYC. When I saw that its chef Andy Ricker was putting out a cookbook, I was excited, but cautious. I was concerned that it might be excessively “chefy” – that is, full of brilliant ideas, but terribly complicated and nearly impossible to use in a home kitchen.

So I restrained myself and put the book on hold at the library instead of rushing right out to buy it. When it finally became available, I paged through it eagerly. Goodness knows there are a lot of challenging-looking recipes in there, but one thing jumped out at me right away as being pretty simple to assemble: a “yam” (Thai salad) with a startling main ingredient – canned tuna. Ricker said he was served a very similar salad at a Thai friend’s house, and liked it so much he tried it on the Pok Pok menu, where it quickly became one of the restaurant’s staple items.

So I gave it a try. And it was fantastic. Good enough that I bought the cookbook right away.

And it requires no cooking! There’s a very brief heating of the sauce ingredients together, but it’s just to warm and meld them – you don’t even get them hot, just slightly warm. It’s ideal to make on a hot summer night, when its bright flavors will refresh and tempt even the most heat-depressed of appetites. Almost all the work is chopping, so you can prep ahead of time and do the actual “cooking” in five minutes. The recipe was very simple to begin with, but I did make a few changes to streamline it (and to eliminate Chinese celery, which I’m not going to buy for the one tablespoon the recipe calls for).

I served this with coconut rice (recipe follows the main recipe), but for a lighter approach it would be great on a bed of lettuce.

Tangy Thai Tuna Salad (Yam Thai)
Serves: 2 or 3     Time: 20 minutes     Hands-on: 20 minutes

DRESSING
2 tablespoons fish sauce (I use Squid brand)
2 tablespoons lime juice
1/2 tablespoon brown sugar or palm sugar
1 tablespoon water
1 piece ginger (1/2 ounce), peeled and cut into thin matchsticks
1 large or 2 small cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 serrano chile, seeded and sliced thin, or Sriracha sauce to taste (about a teaspoon)

SALAD
1 stalk lemongrass, trimmed to bottom three inches, tough outer leaves removed, and very thinly sliced
5 oz (1 can) tuna in water, drained and broken up with a fork
6 to 8 cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 ounce onion, peeled and sliced into matchsticks
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
1 tablespoon thinly sliced green onions, optional

Combine all dressing ingredients in a saucepan and heat briefly over medium-low heat until just warm to the touch, 30 to 60 seconds. Remove from heat.

Add remaining ingredients to the pot (or pour dressing over ingredients in a large bowl). Toss gently. Serve family-style or as a rice bowl topping.

Coconut Rice
This is so simple and delicious! It has a sweet richness that is not overpowering, but goes so well with a light, tangy dish like the Yam Tuna above. Serves 4.

1.5 cups jasmine rice
1 14-ounce can coconut milk
3/4 cup water
1/2 teaspoon sugar
Pinch salt

Rinse the jasmine rice well and set aside. In a medium saucepan with a tight-fitting lid, stir together the coconut milk, water, sugar, and salt until the sugar is dissolved. Stir in the rice and place over medium heat. When the mixture comes to a boil, cover and reduce heat to very low. Simmer 18 minutes.

Check for doneness; when the grains are soft to your liking, turn off the heat and let rest 10 minutes (or up to 30). Fluff gently with a fork before serving, stirring in any coconut cream that rose to the top during cooking.