Viet-Thai Melon Salad, a Recipe 30 Years in the Making
a fab used for nuoc cham vinaigrette
People say that you shouldn’t get a job using the help wanted ads but that’s what I did in 1992. I wanted to cook professionally.
Without industry contacts, I paged through the Los Angeles Times and answered an ad for a line cook at City Restaurant, a super popular restaurant owned by Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feninger. Their menu was inventive and global, based upon their travels. Naan sandwiches, burgers, and Thai red curry were respectfully made from scratch, for example.
The chefs were known to hire women, including people without professional cooking skills like me. Susan interviewed me and soon thereafter, I started working the 2pm to 11pm shift.
The pantry cook position paid $5 per hour. My parents were horrified. I was working with my hands. I graduated from the University of Southern California (USC), had studied finance and Chinese language and culture, and had just returned from Hong Kong where I was on a Rotary fellowship. What would they tell their friends who would surely ask what I was up to?
I doubted that Viet people cared what 23-year-old me was up to. I told my parents that I needed to try cooking.
I hated being a bank examiner (my first job out of college and I sucked at accounting!). After the Rotary fellowship, I felt the urge to pursue my interests in food. My boyfriend-now-husband said he’d support me on his meager income as a part-time college lecturer. We shared his $625-per-month apartment in West Los Angeles. A used bookstore nearby had a terrific cookbook selection.
With few responsibilities, if I didn’t try cooking then, when would I?
My time as a line cook lasted a good summer — three to four months, during which I realized that it was a completely unglamorous job. I nervously cut my finger on the first day, bandaged my finger, and remained on the line. Grilling bread over a hot flame singed off the hairs on my forearms. I couldn’t wash the kitchen smell from my hair or skin.
Hollywood celebrities came in and wanted a Caesar salad without dressing. It was my job to make the romaine and croutons look lyrical on their plates. We do our best to give customers what they want, Susan said one time when we worked the station together.
Bert, the cook who mentored me, said, “Why do you want to do the same thing everyday?” I didn’t answer him but I began thinking of other food industry options and eventually resigned.
When I told my parents, my dad offered to pay for culinary school. I don’t know where he would have gotten the money for it because we’d all been scholarship students at USC. I told him I’d eventually figure something else out.
I never forgot about my stint at CITY. A diverse group of women led the restaurant from owners to executive chefs to lead chefs. Flavors from all over came together in the space. It was democratic. That’s how food ought to be.
The pantry station was responsible for appetizers, salads, and sandwiches — some of my favorite food groups! I cooked on my off hours, recreating my CITY favorites for my boyfriend.
Viet-ish Thai Melon Salad
Among the many tasty dishes was a Thai melon salad with dried shrimp, makrut lime leaf, peanuts, and a spicy fish sauce dressing. I’ve made the salad each summer when melons are in season, tweaking things as I have evolved as a cook.
This summer I streamlined the recipe by using the Nước Chấm Vinaigrette, which many of you (like me!) already have on repeat. The 💡 went off when I looked down at my cutting board at all the limes I’d been squeezing for the dressing. Limes can be expensive.
To make the most of the citrus, I typically grate and freeze lime peel (it lasts for months in a small jar). I mostly use it for the sensational citrus marble cake in Ever-Green Vietnamese.
Trying to see how far I could push the Nước Chấm Vinaigrette, I wondered what would happen if I added a bunch of lime zest to the vinaigrette along with chopped peanuts?
Why: Lime zest can sometimes (but not always) stand in for Makrut lime leaf, a pivotal flavor of the restaurant’s original dressing. The lime leaf can be hard for cooks to obtain.
The result: The zest added zip. The peanuts enriched. The dressing was bright and exciting. Most importantly, it was similar enough to the Thai melon salad from CITY but different. It was lighter. It tasted rolling hills Viet instead of peaks-and-valleys Thai.
The test: Melon tossed in the dressing was good but needed punching up.
The tweak: A handful of fresh herbs lent Viet-flair and complexity to further uplift the salad.
Verdict: The salad serves 6. My husband and I easily ate half of it between the two of us.
After replicating the salad for 30 years, I finally made it my own.
If you have the dressing and melon in the fridge, the salad takes less than 15 minutes to make!
I titled this recipe “Viet-Thai Melon Salad” to capture it and my journey as a cook from CITY in 1992 to now.
Notes for your melon-y adventure:
Instead of peanuts, you can use cashews or maybe sliced almonds. Sunflower seeds would be alright too.
Pounding the nuts (or seeds) releases oil and flavor more than chopping.
Use a firm-sweet melon; a super ripe melon may be too soft or even mushy once it’s been salted. One kind of melon is fine but two is more fun. You could do three, if you want.
Employed in the salad, the Nước Chấm Vinaigrette and MSG Salt are featured in posts for paid subscribers.
Viet-Thai Melon Salad
Most Thai restaurants don’t serve salads with melon. However, my friend and Michelin-starred chef Pim Techamuanvivit, prepares delicious Thai salads with melon and other seasonal fruit. Green papaya is not the only fruit employed.
Serves 4 to 6
1/3 cup Nước Chấm Vinaigrette, plus more as needed
2 tsp packed grated lime zest, fresh or thawed
Brimming 1/3 cup unsalted or lightly salted, roasted peanuts, pounded or finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon minced and mashed garlic
1 lb trimmed watermelon
1 lb trimmed cantaloupe
Fine sea salt or MSG Salt, plus more as needed
1/2 teaspoon sugar
2/3 cup lightly packed hand-torn soft leaf herbs, such as mint, cilantro and/or basil (any kind)
In a small bowl, combine the vinaigrette with the lime zest, peanuts and garlic. Let sit 10 to 15 minutes to develop flavor and texture.
Meanwhile, cut the melon into 1-inch chunks, transfer to a mixing bowl and season with about 1/4 tsp salt and the sugar. Let the fruit sit for 10 minutes to release liquid.
Pour off excess liquid, pour over the dressing, and toss to coat well. Taste to verify flavor. Add salt or extra dressing, if a more savory note is needed. Add the herbs, toss to distribute. Transfer to shallow bowl and serve immediately. If you let the salad sit for too long it releases liquid and the flavor becomes diluted.
Make this salad while melons are in season! Let me know your thoughts and tweaks.
I ate that salad at City on Melrose then. It has stayed in my mind since then. I followed those girls to all their restaurants through the years. True Pioneers. Thanks for adding on to the story.
This sounds amazing! I’d love to make unfortunately my hubs doesn’t like fish sauce in large quantities. A scant tablespoon is his upper limit. Was hopeful the vegan “fish” sauce would be light enough on the funk for him, but no it isn’t. What could I use to replace the majority of the fish sauce with? Pineapple juice? Soy sauce? Chicken stock?