International Noodle Incident - Vietnamese Noodle Salad

I couldn't be more happier for the theme of this International Incident Party to be noodles. I grew up eating many noodles dishes, pancit - which is one of the national dishes of The Philippines, toros teszta - hungarian noodles made with cottage cheese, the very sustainable krumplis teszta - hungarian noodles with potato and of course growing up in Australia - Spaghetti Bolognese ( pasta is noodles after all!). 


Of all the wonderful noodle dishes I love to cook, I chose this one because I feel that it is a dish not from a country that I have any cultural heritage with, but a noodle dish with my own little twist on it. I really love to cook this dish because it really is so incredibly tasty and satisfying.  A big bonus too, insanely healthy and a very sustainable meal to eat due to my modifications (the mungbean noodles are 35 GI in place of rice noodles which are 80+GI! that's ridiculously low!).  And my apologies for making a summer dish in the cringe of winter, but it was my first choice of noodle.


So anyway, my choice of noodles for the theme is: 

Vietnamese Noodle Salad 

Firstly there is my choice of noodles. Many would protest to say that these noodles are only used for cooking stir fried noodles and soup, but I actually prefer the texture of these noodles in place of rice stick vermicelli. It is important to let the noodles sit in the boiling water for 3-4 minutes to make sure they are cooked through enough. After you have drained the noodles, it is also important that you let all the moisture come out of them. This may take around 30 minutes and you will be able to tell because they will seem stuck together. It is important to do this because if you were to put them in strait after draining them, they would be hot and the dressing would just slide off them instead of absorb it. I tend not to rinse the noodles with any water at all because I found that this made them resistant to absorbing the dressing as well. So just let them sit in the strainer until they completely cool down and become stuck together. I find that if they're are prepared properly, they don't go soggy like the rice vermicelli. Of course you can use rice vermicelli if you prefer, but I choose the bean thread. Very healthy too!

As the majority of the ingredients in this dish are uncooked, it is very important that all ingredients are extremely fresh. You really need to be buying the ingredients the day before, if not the same day due to the short life of coriander, mint and bean shoots. Another tool that is very useful here is a julienne grater. I bought mine at an Asian grocer for $8. Before I had this, I julienned the carrot and cucumber by knife (with my bare hands!), quite a tedious task and made the preparation time longer than it should be. Using a julienne grater for this dish  will save a lot of time and strain. After all you still have to cut everything else as well.

For the salad


4 x 50g bean thread vermicelli
2 cucumbers
2 carrots
1 bunch mint
1 bunch coriander
handful of cleaned (tailed) bean shoots
2 spring onions (green part only)


Dressing: Nuoc Cham


1 small garlic clove
2 small red chillies
140ml fish sauce (nuoc man nhi) 
5 tbsp white sugar
2 tbsp water
juice of 1 lemon


For garnish 


Chopped roasted peanuts
fried onion
finely sliced red chilli (optional)


Method
1. Place the bean thread in a heat proof bowl and cover noodles with boiling water for 3-4mins. Drain and leave to sit in strainer for 30 mins.
2. Wash all salad ingredients. 
3. Julienne carrot and cucumber. Slice green part of spring onions. Pinch the tails off the bean shoots. Remove mint for the stems and cut the coriander into 2cm pieces.
4. To make the dressing, pound the garlic and chilli in a mortar and pestle. Add all other ingredients and stir to ensure the sugar has dissolved.
5. Place the cooled noodles into a large mixing bowl. Put enough dressing on the noodles to absorb ( 5-6 tbsp ) and mix.
6. Add all other vegetables and add more dressing if needed.
7. Garnish with peanuts, fried onion and sliced chilli (optional!).

I served this salad along side my spring rolls which is whole other story and I won't get into now. You can also eat this salad as a one-bowl meal and cook some sliced beef fillet, quickly seared in a pan with some fish sauce and garlic (bun bo xao - vietnamese noodle salad with beef). Here I have put less noodles than usual because it was served along side the spring rolls. For a one-bowl meal I prefer to put more noodles but really it comes down to how much vegetables or noodles you like. I love my noodles!

Here's the list of everyone else's contribution! 

• Penny – Jeroxie (Addictive & Consuming) – Homemade ban mian with minced pork and mushrooms
• Christine – Christine’s Recipes – Spicy Pork Mince and Noodles in Crisp Lettuce Cups
• Mardi – Eat, Live, Travel, Write – Ginger scallion & Butter noodles
• Trix – Tasty Trix – Summer ‘Noodles’ with yellow and green zuchinni with cool basil oil tomato sauce
• Shirley – Enriching your kid – Vermicilli Biryani with Tahini
• Natasha – 5 Star Foodie – Homemade Soba Noodles
• Anges – Off the spork – Handpulled noodles at home
• Joanne – Second Helping
• Cherry – Sweet Cherry Pie – Coconut noodles with honey glazed pork belly
• Tracey - Tangled Noodle – Fork in the Road: North Platte Noodles
• Evelyne - Cheap Ethnic Eatz – Incidental Noodles
• Ms Baklover - Footscray Food Blog – Zha Jiang Mian
• Casey – Eating, Gardening & Living in Bulgari
• Tamar – Koreanfornian Cooking – Tteokbokki
• Billy – Half-Eaten – Pumpkin Miso Noodles in Shitake Dashi Broth
• Suresh – 3 hungry tummies – Twice cooked pork with rice noodles
• Anh – A food Lover’s Journey – Taco Soba Noodle
• Lori – Wannabe Gourmand – Nonya Curry Laksa
• Malou – Skip to Malou – Fried Noodle Dish

Salad of fresh white peach, prosciutto and buffalo mozzarella

It's only a few sleeps now before I head off to the Philippines, so I'm feeling desperate to enjoy some food that I know I'll be out of reach for a month. I went for a stroll around Vic Market yesterday to see what looked good and came across some white peaches that reminded me of the salad featured in the Epicure pull-out in The Age this Tuesday.

Bill's Farm could quite possibly be the only delicatessen in Vic Market that will slice you their hams on purchase and don't kick up a fuss about minimum weight purchases. I couldn't go past their parma prosciutto that would go perfect with the peaches and an immaculate white ball of buffalo milk mozzarella. 

Salad of fresh white peach, prosciutto and buffalo mozzarella

1 cup watercress

1/2 cup torn basil leaves
1 white peach cut into 8 pieces
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
 squeeze of 1/2 lemon
 1 buffalo mozzarella  

6 slices of freshly sliced prosciutto

• Scatter watercress and basil on a plate and tear mozzarella into chunks around salad.
• Place prosciutto and peaches around salad and dress with a sqeeze of lemon and drizzle with oil.
• Season with sea salt and cracked pepper.

Serves 2 as a side

This is such a simple salad which really relies on the freshest and highest quality produce. The prosciutto was so silky to eat along with the fresh peaches and the creaminess of the buffalo mozzarella made the salad come together perfectly. I ate this for my lunch the same day I went to the market but would go great as a part of a meal along side some grilled seafood or meat. A fantastic summer salad.

Source: Inspired by - Salad of fresh peach, serrano ham and buffalo mozzarella, Caroline Velik, Epicure The Age 19/01/10

Káposztasaláta (Hungarian Coleslaw)

After eating too many rice meals days on end, I decided it was time to revisit some of my childhood food. As we all do, I absolutely adored my Grandmother's cooking. My family would devour delicious Magyar food everytime we visited my grandparent's house and had many generous feasts on birthdays and religious celebrations.

One side dish that would always be a part of a banquet was káposztasaláta, which is Hungarian style coleslaw. It is quite different from the coleslaw that Australians are familiar with, as there is an absence of mayonnaise. In turn, the dish is beautifully light and refreshing, perfectly complimenting the heavy meaty dishes that Hungarians enjoy.

Being able to make a perfect káposztasaláta is some what a right of passage for a Hungarian girl. Despite only being half Hungarian (from my father's side), this is still one dish that I need to do right! On the occasions that I prepared this salad from my grandparents (Nana & Tata), they strongly approved. phew!

After all, the recipe was passed on from Nana and she is the expert.

So there are a few things that are very important in getting this dish right:

• Firstly you need super fresh cabbage! Not that I should even have to mention always using fresh produce, but really, what you are trying to achieve with this dish is crunchy sweet fresh cabbage. If the cabbage was old you will definitely end up angry Hungarians, and you DO NOT want that.
• You need to make sure to slice the cabbage as FINE as possible. You will definitely need your knife to be super sharp and have patience because if the cabbage shreds are thick, the whole dish turns out wrong.

Ingredients

1/4 of a large cabbage - finely shredded

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp white sugar

1 tsp apple cider / white vinegar

1 tsp extra virgin olive oil

Method

1. Finely shred cabbage with a sharp knife and place in a bowl.
2. Add salt, sugar, cider/ vinegar and oil to shredded cabbage and mix to distribute ingredients.
3. Leave the cabbage for 15 minutes, mixing the salad every 5 minutes. This time will allow the cabbage to slightly pickle and give a good texture.

This salad is perfect with crumbed veal schnitzel and roasted paprika potatoes as I have here. Any other heavy meat dishes would also go well such as roast/ grilled meats, sausages or meatloaf.

Recipe: Nana Margita Koroknai