The salad is supposed to be spicy with lots of green Thai chiilies or any chilli of your choice. I used Serrano chillies and used 1 whole between the chicken and salad. You can use more if you can handle the spice but for the kids, I kept it low key. The soy sauce is not traditional in the dressing but because I have such major issues with the smell and taste of fish sauce, I use soy sauce. Also my vegetarian child prefers the soy for a veggie option. The dressing should marry all the flavours: tart, spicy, sweet and salty. Adjust to your liking by tasting. You could also mix in all the meat into the salad and toss around, but since I have kids who some like a lot and some don't want any, I just leave the meat on the side. The sticky rice on the side might seem strange, because it did to me at first, but let me tell you how perfectly it goes with this salad. It tames the heat and soaks the lovely dressing and is just wonderful, so make the rice! Also, do not leave out the toasted ground rice it adds amazing depth of flavour. If you don't have a problem with fish sauce then the dressing will be GF but if you do, like me, then choose a GF organic soy sauce (to avoid GMOs) to make the dressing