Crispy Chicken Salad à la Wondee Siam Recipe on Food52 (2024)

While I love being here in Mazatlán, one of the things I really miss about New York is the access to global cuisines, and especially East Asian foods, like Thai, Chinese, and Vietnamese cuisines. I love those flavors so much, not least because they usually involve sweet-heat combinations, with an incredible brightness that often comes from lime juice, orange juice, or another kind of citrus.

Particularly, I'm longing for a dish from this restaurant in Hell's Kitchen called Wondee Siam. They make this crispy duck salad that I've been eating for probably about 15 years. It's this duck that's been fried—almost like chicharrón—paired with pineapple, onions, Thai chiles, lime juice, and fish sauce. I've been missing the dish so much that I've recreated it here.

The sweet and heat come from a few elements of this dish: While the pineapple adds quite a bit of sweetness, if your pineapples aren't quite as sweet as the kind I find here in Mexico, some added palm sugar will help dial up that flavor. As for the heat, I use green chiles de árbol here, which have a very spicy and almost grassy flavor. We also get some heat from red onion (soaked in salted water to pull out some of the raw, harsh flavor), and a bit of tartness from Granny Smith apple.

As for the protein itself, though the original dish from Wondee Siam calls for duck, I wasn't able to find that in Mazatlán and used a rotisserie chicken instead. (I grilled myself, but you can buy a prepared rotisserie chicken from the store.) We'll shred the tender meat and toss it with our bright and fresh salad dressing. And to get that crispiness that I love so much about Wondee Siam's version, we'll pan-fry the chicken skin to sprinkle over the top of everything. —Rick Martinez

Directions

1. Toss onion, 2 teaspoons salt, and 2 cups water in a medium bowl. Let sit at room temperature until ready to serve. Whisk fish sauce, lime juice, lime zest and chiles in a liquid measuring cup until completely combined. If using an under-ripe or not-so-sweet pineapple, whisk 1 teaspoon sugar into fish sauce dressing to balance the lime; taste and add more if desired. Set aside until ready to serve.
2. Heat a large heavy skillet over high until hot, about 2 minutes. Add cashews and peanuts and cook, tossing constantly, until very fragrant and toasted in spots, about 2 minutes. Transfer to a medium heatproof bowl.
3. Add lard in the same heavy skillet over high and cook chicken, undisturbed, until golden brown on 1 side, about 3 minutes. Carefully turn and cook until golden brown, about 3 minutes. Transfer chicken to a paper towel lined sheet tray. Reduce to medium-high and cook chicken skins, turning occasionally, until deep golden brown and crispy, about 3 minutes. Transfer to sheet tray with chicken.
4. Drain onion; rinse and drain again. Toss apple, pineapple, scallion, cilantro, onion, dressing, peanuts, cashews and chicken together in a large bowl and toss until evenly distributed and completely coated; season with salt if necessary. Line plates with lettuce leaves, top with salad and sprinkle with crispy chicken skin. Serve with rice alongside.

Recipe by: Rick Martinez