Gỏi Đu Đủ Khô Bò Gan Cháy (Vietnamese Papaya Salad with Beef Jerky and Liver Jerky)

While we were in San Jose to visit our relatives yesterday, I spotted a couple of places that sell Vietnamese Beef and Liver Jerky at the Vietnamese Grand Century Mall.  I immediately thought of my papaya salad recipe and wonder how I can improve on the sauce; it has the right taste but I can't seem to get the saltiness just right; I think it needs to be just a tad lighter. So, I bought some Beef  and Liver Jerky and got a few green papayas at an Asian grocery store nearby.  Realizing that I have church on Sunday, I will test out the sauce recipe at church. 

This morning, my 4 year-old daughter and I woke up at 8:00 am and started to experiment on the sauce with different ingredients that I didn't use in my previous sauce recipe.  While my mother-in-law helped us shred the fresh green papaya, my daughter helped out as the official taster; she actually has quite a reliable taste when it comes to food. 

The first batch we made,  she thought the sauce tasted different and it was too salty.  She recommended adding more sugar.  After adjusting the ingredients, it was still a little salty and somehow it didn't taste right.  Okay, back to square one.  This time, however, we used hoisin sauce as the main ingredient.   Low and behold, that was all it needed..  My daughter gave it a taste and gave it two thumbs up.   I thought it tasted so much better and  yet simpler than the previous recipe. 

We put together two large  trays of Papaya Salad with Beef and Liver Jerky, a jar of sauce and it was ready for the mass to try at church.  It's a simple recipe, but the papaya salad is packed with a complex array of flavors -  meaty, tangy, refreshing. It goes to show that simplicity can indeed packs a gustatory punch. 

This Gỏi Đu Đủ Khô Bò Gan Cháy would make a nice dish to start the Spring. 

 

I made a revision to the previous Gỏi Đu Đủ Khô Bò Gan Cháy recipe.   Hop over  here for the Recipe.