Yum Ta Wai

(Ta Wai Salad)

Ingredients
Chicken, dried chilies, galangal, lemongrass, shallots, garlic, good quality shrimp paste, roasted white sesame, Notopterus (fresh water fish), coconut, ripe tamirind, palm sugar, and good quality fish sauce.
Fresh vegetables needed for the salad
The edible inflorescence of Tani (A kind of Banana plant), Swamp Cabbage (only stems, not leaves), cow pea, green pea, sweet pepper, bamboo shoot, purple eggplant, and green eggplant.
Preparation
Boil the chicken until cooked, then tear it into strips. Fry the chicken with coconut until dried, add a pinch of salt, then set aside.
Take only meat of fresh water fish, and stir fry until crisp. Then finely pound it, set aside.
Roasted the white sesame until fragrant, set aside. Pound the dried chilies together with galangal, lemongrass, shallots, and garlic. Add some shrimp paste and prepared pounded fish meat. Then fry the mixture with coconut until cooked and thick.
Add on ripe tamarind to get sour flavor, also blend it for sweet and salty flavor. Put it in a bowl. Fry the shallots, then set aside.
Finely slice all prepared vegetable, then blanch them in hot coconut milk. When the vegetable are cooked, keep them together in a big bowl and well mixed.

Put the roasted sesame into the vegetable bowl and mix them up, put the mixture onto a deep plate. Pour in the prepared fried chili paste on the top of the vegetable until it is soaked.
Sprinkle the top of the salad with the prepared chicken, fried shallots, and roasted sesame. The salad is now ready for serve.
This salad (yum) is rarely prepared for sale because it is rather complicated to prepare. More assistants needed during cooking.
It is prepare for serve only on important occasions and for special guests. However, it taste very nice.

(Mom Luang Nuang Nilruttana. 2537 B.E: 238,253-254)