Technically, this recipe is called Vietnamese crepe salad but I didn’t use all the traditional vegetables because I wanted to see what other vegetables and/or fruit would be good with this dish.
My mom used to make rows of crepe on the weekends and we would spend all day eating it. It was a guilty free meal since it was mostly vegetables. She would have 2-3 woks running at the same time with a pot of crepe batter that would seem endless. I never thought she would ever tire but learning to make them myself, I realize it’s very time consuming. But you get to eat and cook at the same time, which my siblings and I used to do when we were younger. It got us in the kitchen and learning to cook.
The crepe can be made with coconut milk but I find that it can be rather fattening. Though this crepe isn’t as sweet as most people are accustomed, it’s mostly a savory dish so I tried to stay away from that. Instead, I introduced mango and corn as a sweeter option with less fat.
Ingredients for Salad
- 4 cups of chopped lettuce. I recommend red or Boston lettuce since they won’t shrivel as much.
- 1 corn
- 1/4 cup of mint. Red mint is the best for this salad.
- 4-5 baby carrots, shopped. I like these more than the large carrots because they are sweeter and softer crunch
- 1 Israeli cucumber, peeled and sliced
- 1/2 mango, peeled and sliced
Ingredients for Crepe
This will make about 4 crepes.
- 1 cup, rice flour
- 1 cup, water
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp tumeric powder
- 1/4 lbs ground chicken. Pork is a better option for texture. Shrimp is also amazing to have here too.
- 1/2 red onion, sliced
- salt, for meat filling taste
- olive oil, to cook
1. Clean, chop, cut all the veggies and set aside.
2. Before making the crepe, heat up a wok and spay with a bit of olive oil. I use olive oil in this mist spray bottle so it comes out like PAM, which is great, and not wasteful.
3. Cook the meat and onion and add a dash of salt for taste, and set aside.
4. Mix the rice flour, water, egg, and tumeric powder well.
5. Heat up the wok again on high and spray olive oil well all around.
6. Once the wok heats, pour about a ladle and half in the center of the wok and lift the wok by the handle, working the batter until it spreads into a nice sircle.
7. Lower the heat to medium and cover the wok for about 3 minutes.
8. Take the cover off and add meat mixture. Close the cover for another 2-3 minutes to heat up meat.
9. The crepe is cooked when it’s nice and crispy. You’ll hear a soft crack if you lift the crepe with a spatula.
10. Set the crepe onto a plate. Serve with vegetables and let the eaters add fish sauce as they need.
11. Repeat by adding a little olive oil each time and pour crepe. You can eat as you cook or layer all the crepes out until you’ve finished with the batter.
Ingredients for Fish Sauce
- 1/2 cup water, boiled
- 1/4 cup of sugar
- 1/4 cup of fish sauce
- 2 tbs of white vinegar
- 1 clove garlic, crushed
- 1 Thai chili pepper, chopped
1. For the fish sauce, boil water and add sugar. Melt the sugar.
2. Add fish sauce and stir.
3. Take off stove and add vinegar, garlic and pepper.
4. You’ll have leftovers so make sure to save them.
This recipe feels like it would take a long time to make and seems not-for-the-faint-of-heart beginners. But honestly, I’ve made this recipe so many time that I can do it in my sleep. Also, it helps that I make a large batch of the “fish sauce” sauce and store for future usage. Believe me, this dish is amazing. It is one of my favorites and I add all sorts of vegetables when I can and like I mentioned before, it feels guilt-free.
