Recipe(tried): hi wendy, about the lemon grass ->

wendy,

in most salads in southeast asian cuisines, lemon grass play a very important role. it may ruin your dish if you don't pay attention to it.

ok, here is a general guide. you must get those "fat" and "firm" lemon grass. by "fat", i mean they are rather large at the bottom compare to their dry, thin tops. Then you want to rid of the hard outter layer. peel them off until you find the "pale green" parts. (a bit like what you do with an artichock... get it?) then you want to "finely" slice that part only. (you may reserve the drier part for soup, ie. Thai Tom Yum Goong/Gai soups.) or just toss them out. You MUST slice the soft, tender lemon grass really fine or else they will taste really fiberous in your salad and ruin the whole thing. A way to know how much of the lemon grass is worth to keep for a salad dish is to lightly cut(slash) it with a knife. if your knife can easily go through the lemon grass, then that's the part you will keep. (it's like how you know how much of an asparagus you will keep by using a knife to taste... Does this make any sense??? sorry i don't know a better way to describe!)

store lemon grass free of water, wrapped in newspapers in the bottom part of your fridge (in the fruit/veggie compartment.) they should be able to last a while this way. in OZ, it is quite easy to grow them if you live in a warm part of the country. just get some lemon grass that still has roots on them and into the soil you plant it! they will look rather ugly and bushy but they come handy if you do a bit of cooking with them!

as far as the Viet salad recipe is concerned, i don't have the exact measuring at the moment, like susan, i do a bit of this and that... but i will get back to you as i have a rather good guide at home either tonight or tomorrow. our pc isn't feeling well so... (i am in a cybercafe at the moment!)

until then,
eggy/m'sia