Recipe, Thai Chicken Salad

Thai chicken and mango salad

Serves 4
To be strictly Thai you should leave out the watercress and increase the quantity of herbs. If you can't find green mangoes, or prefer to eat ripe ones, you can use 1 ripe mango and 1 tart green apple (core removed). As well as sourness the green mangoes provide crunch so an apple is a fine substitute.
4 chicken fillets (skinned)
salt and pepper
groundnut oil
6 spring onions, sliced
8 cloves garlic, peeled and finely sliced
2 medium-sized unripe mangoes
2tbs fish sauce
2 tbs caster sugar
juice of 1 1/2 limes
3 medium-sized red chillies
50g fresh coriander
40g fresh mint leaves
50g watercress leaves
1 1/2 tbs roughly chopped roasted peanuts

Lightly season the chicken breasts and saute them in 2 tbs groundnut oil until cooked through. Leave to cool. Saute the spring onions, using a little more oil if you need to, in the same pan and put them in a broad flat bowl. Quickly fry the slices of garlic until golden - be really careful not to burn them. Add these to the bowl as well. Cut the flesh from the mangoes and cut it into lengths about the thickness of two matchsticks.Put these in the bowl along with the fish sauce, sugar and lime juice. Halve and deseed the chillies and slice them finely. Add to the bowl. Finally cut the chicken into strips and add to the bowl with the herbs, watercress and 3 1/2 tbs of groundnut oil. Mix everything together. Scatter the roasted peanuts over the top and serve.