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Watermelon Salad With Fried Shallots and Fish Sauce
![Watermelon Salad With Fried Shallots and Fish Sauce](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/05/25/dining/23kenjirex2-watermelon/merlin_206815695_f4abe89e-b2ba-4c91-8346-1e1f044ef4b5-articleLarge.jpg?width=1280&quality=75&auto=webp)
- Total Time
- 15 minutes
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
- 4medium garlic cloves
- 2 to 12fresh Thai bird’s-eye chiles (depending on how much heat you enjoy), stems trimmed (see Tip)
- 3tablespoons palm sugar (see Tip)
- ¼cup fish sauce
- 3tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
- ½cup homemade or store-bought fried shallots
- 3pounds seedless watermelon (about 1 small or ¼ large), rind removed, cut into 1-inch chunks
- ½small red onion, thinly sliced
- 1small cucumber, halved lengthwise and cut into ½-inch slices
- Large handful of roughly chopped mint leaves
- Large handful of roughly chopped cilantro leaves
- ½cup roughly crushed or chopped roasted peanuts
For the Dressing
For the Salad
Preparation
- Step 1
Prepare the dressing: Combine garlic, chiles and sugar in the bowl of a large mortar and pestle. Pound into a fine paste. Add fish sauce and stir with the pestle until the sugar is fully dissolved. Add the lime juice and stir with the pestle to incorporate. Alternatively, you can combine the garlic, chiles, palm sugar (chop it into bits with a heavy knife or cleaver if it came in solid chunks), fish sauce and lime juice in a blender. Blend until the garlic and chiles are finely chopped, and stir until the sugar is dissolved.
- Step 2
Prepare the salad: If using homemade shallots, skip to Step 3. If using store-bought shallots, toast them dry in a large skillet over medium-low heat until deep caramel brown and aromatic, about 3 minutes. (Alternatively, you can toast the shallots on a sheet tray in an oven or toaster oven at 375 degrees until deep caramel brown, about 6 minutes). Season generously with salt and transfer to a bowl.
- Step 3
Combine watermelon, onion, cucumber, mint, cilantro, peanuts, half of the fried shallots and ¼ cup dressing in a large bowl. Toss to combine. Taste and add more dressing as desired. (Excess dressing can be reserved in a sealed container in the fridge for up to two weeks.) Transfer to a serving platter and sprinkle with remaining shallots. Serve.
- Thai bird’s-eye chiles are small, bright and very hot. If you can’t find them, you can use any hot chile available to you, though, if possible, lean toward brighter, fruitier chiles like habanero or Fresno over grassier chiles like jalapeño or serrano. You can find palm sugar in most well-stocked Asian supermarkets or online retailers. (Pucks, paste or granulated all work fine here.) If you can’t find it, you can use light brown sugar in its place. You can find Southeast Asian-style fried shallots in most well-stocked Asian supermarkets, or from online specialty grocers. They can also be made at home.
Private Notes
Cooking Notes
The dressing is a classic Vietnamese nuoc cham and should be adjusted while making since different limes have different levels of sour/acid and chilis vary in heat. The measurements given are estimates based on what will generally taste right. Taste once combined and if too sour, add water and a little palm sugar, if too sweet, add a little lime, if too salty, add water and balance with lime or sugar. Also, use a higher quality fish sauce, such as red boat (available on Amazon).
Ellen, most experts agree that grinding in a mortar and pestle does in fact 'make a difference', but that is down to taste. The idea that using a blender instead of a mortar leaves you with one less thing to wash is just bizarre, however. I mean, you do have to wash out your blender after you use it, right? I also think you'll find that washing out a mortar is much quicker and easier than washing out a blender.
While I love all of the ingredients separately, the dressing wasn't well balanced and was too salty. Next time I would use less fish sauce (2T) and more lime juice (4 T). I would also conserve any watermelon juice and add it to the dressing. I used 3 Thai chilies, which was more than enough heat. Much more than that and it would be inedible for most people. Also, skip the mortar and pestle and just put everything into the blender. It won’t make a difference and one less thing to wash.
For anyone planning to buy the fried shallots at an Asian store, the product is often labeled as "fried onion" or "fried red onion" rather than as shallots.
You can actually buy vegan fish sauce and it’s awesome! I’m allergic to seafood (to the point where even just a tsp of fish sauce in a dish with lots of other ingredients causes an allergic reaction for me), but I love the flavor that fish sauce brings to any dish, so I hunted down an alternative. I purchased the 24Vegan brand on Amazon (which has tripled in price since I bought it last year so may be cheaper elsewhere), and it brings the glorious umami/perfect funk just like regular fish sauce!
Excellent salad. Refreshing, spicy, multi-textured, deeply satisfying. I used 2 thai chiles and that was more than enough for my taste so if you don't do real spicy go easy. Brown sugar instead of palm and fried onions from a can.
Made this for friends last night and of course didn’t have any shallots fresh or fried so I just added extra peanuts and luckily no one knew how much better it could be and it was delicious.
This is absolutely amazing. I had a third helping. We cut back on the fish sauce (by half, substituting a little water) because we were using Red Boat rather than a lighter one, and it was amazing. Great quoc cham, great salad, and the herbs and fried shallots take it over the top.
I used half the amount of watermelon each of the three times I’ve made this, and all of (store bought) shallots on top. Two or three large chiles, not jalapeños but not sure what kind. It was a random bag. Everyone loves this!
This was SO GOOD!
Excellent,,, Used light brown sugar , 1/2 of a habanero pepper. Cut back on fish sauce by half Toasted canned French fried onions as directed Made dressing with immersion blender in 2 cup Pyrex Saved cut up fruit separately from dressing to have leftover Delicious. Would be great for a potluck
Only used 2 Thai chiles and maple syrup instead of palm sugar and it came out great. I cut the watermelon into thin triangles, added tomatoes, halved grapes and nectarines and added a bit of basil on top. Used half the dressing on the salad as the recipe called for and although it tasted strong before adding it to the watermelon, it was almost delicate once it was on it and infused the fruit with a hint of flavors in the dressing. Everyone loved it. Very elegant salad.
This was a huge hit at last year's 4th of July cookout. Favorite dish for quite a few ppl, will make again! As always, taste as you go and make adjustments for salty/sweet/sour.
The salad I made would have easily served 8, and I absolutely followed the recipe. Someone said it doesn't overnight wall, but I just had some left over for lunch and while the peanuts and shallots are not longer crisp, it still tastes fantastic. And there are still about 4 hearty servings left! BTW, I made my own fried shallots and it wasn't onerous. The worst part was trying to slice the little nubby shallot ends on the mandolin. And now I have a jar of lovely shallot oil!
This dish is glorious!! Incredible Asian flavors wrapped up in the most perfectly summery dish 😍
Very tasty but the dressing wasn't as strong as other commenters were suggesting. I ended up using all the dressing and then added extra lime juice on top. I used 2 chilis and could have possibly gone up to 3.
I'm now obsessed with this salad. The dressing is very similar to what you would have in Thailand as a Papaya Salad. With any recipe, taste and adjust as you go. I added a bit of maple syrup to sweeten the sauce as I found it a bit sour- But some may like that.
Completely addictive!!
Is there a preferred brand of store bought fried shallots?
This is a wonderful, refreshing salad perfect for a summer night's meal. I made it tonight and added around 20 poached shrimp to it. It was a major hit. I used the mortar and pestle to make the sauce, which was pretty difficult and messy and even after 30 minutes of grinding didn't fully incorporate the skins of the chilies. I think next time I'd just use a blender or food processor, but overall the combination of textures and flavors and the mix of spicy, sweet and salty is perfection.
Wow! I wasn’t expecting to love this but it’s quite delicious! Everything works together so well. If you were on the fence I would definitely give it a go. While I’m sure it was not as delicious we used generic fried onions from the grocery store, as well as brown sugar and a habanero for the dressing.
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