It’s pomelo season, and in the last week, I’ve made Cambodia pomelo salad three times. How could I resist? Everywhere I shopped — from the San Jose Tet market where I bought my potted chrysanthemums, to the Chinese grocery store, to Costco — there were pomelos for sale. The gentle giant version of grapefruit is favored in Cambodia as a palate cleansing winter fruit, and also as the star in a special event salads like this one.
Medium pomelos are the size of a volleyball and big ones make you think of playing basketball. I search for the heaviest one in whatever size that’s available because then the flesh won’t be so dry. Pomelo flesh is drier than that of grapefruit so that’s why the dryness is an issue.
To get to the flesh, one also removes the out skin of each segment. Cut into each segment with a knife or pair of kitchen scissors, and then use your fingers to remove the flesh and break it apart into bite size pieces. In Cambodia, a super dedicated cook would separate each piece of pomelo flesh into individual teardrop cells. I’ve not that kind of patience, though sometimes the pomelo flesh will naturally fall apart. It’s a tedious task, but one that’s great for sharing with friends. My girlfriends Michelle, Thy and I attacked a pomelo last weekend for a salad for our Tet dinner and had quality girl time in the process.
Like grapefruit, pomelo may be whitish/yellow or pink. In this salad, my California grown pomelos were all pink in color so I chose to use some finely shredded carrot for a funky/cool contrast. If yours is whitish/yellow, use a small carrot and add 1/2 thinly sliced cucumber (halve it lengthwise and seed it first)> When using carrot and cucumber, I the cut veggies with 1/4 teaspoon of each salt and sugar to make them weep their liquid, then I rinse and squeeze them dry before adding to the salad. Regardless, you’ll end up with an unusual savory-tart-bitter-pungent blending of flavors that’s also beautiful to look at. If you don’t have time for frying the shallots, add a little more peanuts to make up for the loss of richness.
