On My Palette

For Sunday Lunch Project #6, we had Goi Buoi or Vietnamese Pomelo Salad that is perfect for the hot, humid days of early summer.

The first time I had this was when we ate at Pho Hoa.  It is such a refreshing and delightful salad that one can’t easily forget.  It is easy to prepare, and quite nutritious, too.

Pomelo is what we call suha (Tagalog) and cabugao (Visayan) in my country. It is also known as the Chinese grapefruit.  It is the largest citrus fruit and is native to Southeast Asia.  We usually eat it for dessert or snack: the citrus fleshy segments are taken out of its membranous covering, best served cold, and dipped in coarse salt. Mmm, yum!

For an amateur cook like me, I like goi buoi because it is such an easy recipe that could surely impress your lunch guests in an instant…

To make Goi Buoi, cut strips of carrots, cucumbers and crab sticks, placing it on a bed of lettuce for presentation.

Normally shrimps are used for Goi Buoi but since I was on a budget, I used cooked chicken instead, and garnished it with peanuts, cilantro and mint.

And of course, don’t forget to add most important ingredient (which I almost did *facepalm*) – the pomelo cut into bite-size pieces.

Toss all ingredients.  For the dressing, it varies from recipe to recipe on the net. One says to just add fish sauce but I found it wanting so I added kalamansi (or lime) juice and sugar to the fish sauce.

So. Was my Goi Buoi a hit or a miss?

Answer: My lunch guests today enjoyed it so much that before I could get a second serving, it was all gone. Oh, well.  My dad liked it and found it refreshing (“Ang bango sa bibig… Para kang nagtoothbrush” lol) especially because of the mint which we don’t normally use in Pinoy cooking.  So this definitely was a certified hit!

That’s it for SLP#6.  BTW, thanks to Pchie for shooting these nice macro pix, and to Paw for the necessary tweakings…

And also my next Sunday Lunch Project is also my FooDorama Challenge#6:

~~~~~~~~~~~~ sunlupro

Pomelo info source: wikipedia

Recipe source: recipezaar