Grilled Summer Vegetable and Chicken Salad with Oyster Sauce Dressing

Don't freak out! Yes Oyster sauce....as a salad dressing. I know what you're thinking, um gross, but I promise it's not!  

Let's face it, it's been stupid hot across the entire country, climbing into the upper 70's here on the California Coast (I know that's not hot, but it is if you don't have AC and need to turn on your oven) so I wanted a hearty dinner salad to use up all of my fresh summer vegetables that came in our weekly Community Supported Agriculture box (if you haven't tried one of these, I suggest doing a little research and find a CSA near your home. Some need to be picked up and some are delivered to your house.)

The original recipe calls for fish sauce as the main dressing flavor, but I chose to use oyster sauce because it's much lighter in flavor making for a less fish dominant dressing. 

Ingredients for the Salad:

1/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut, toasted (sweetened with work too if that's what you have.) 

Vegetable oil

6 fresh okra pods or 1 cup frozen okra, thawed  (I'm going to call this optional because while it's good, I feel that the okra didn't really add anything to the salad)

3 ears of corn, shucked

2 large zucchini, halved lengthwise

2 long red chiles (such as Holland or Anaheim), stemmed

1 small eggplant, cut lengthwise

1 tablespoon sea salt

1 small head of butter or Romain lettuce, torn to bite sized pieces

1 store-bought roasted chicken, shredded

1/2 cup white rice, cooked

Ingredients for the Dressing:

1 garlic clove, minced

1 teaspoon  light brown sugar

2 tablespoons oyster or fish sauce (such as nuoc nam or nam pla)

1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

2 handfuls (loosely packed) mixed fresh tender herbs chopped (such as basil, cilantro, fennel fronds, marjoram, mint, and tarragon, basically whatever you have on hand or in your garden, but MINT is a must!)

Getting started....

Heat your grill to medium, too hot and you'll toast your delicate veggies.  

First, rub your ears of corn with vegetable oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, place on grill to char. 

Also, place your whole peppers on the grill as well. 

Next, you want to make your dressing because the flavors seem to get better as they sit together in the fridge.

In a small bowl whisk all the ingredients for your dressing, adding a little salt and pepper to taste. Set aside in the fridge. 

While the corn grills (hello, it takes longer) you want to prep the rest of your veggies for the grill. 

• Use a pastry brush to evenly coat all of your cut vegetables with oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Yep, everything, even your okra if you're using it. 

• Using tongs, place everything cut side down on your hot grill.

• Turn over the corn and the peppers. Remove the peppers when they begin to blister. place in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap while you finish everything else. This will steam the peppers and make it easier to remove the skins. 

• Cook vegetables until softened and have lovely grill marks, use your judgement on the time as some people like their veggies cooked more than others, but plan about 6 minutes for the zucchini and eggplant. 

Once everything is grilled, it's time to put your salad together.

Chop all of the vegetables into bite sized pieces and remove the corn from the cob (easiest way is to stand the corn up on it's flat end and gently slice down with a sharp knife.) Taste your peppers before adding all of them. We learned the hard way that ours were really hot. 

Toss with chicken, rice, coconut, and lettuce.

Give your dressing one more good whisk to make sure that nothing separated. Drizzle your dressing over your salad and toss to coat well. 

Bonus! If you happen to have good french or sourdough bread around, coat with oil, salt and pepper and grill alongside your veggies for homemade croutons!