Thai Glass Noodle Salad with Julienned Vegetables, Vietnamese Poached Shrimp and a Chiffonade of Fresh Basil, Mint and Cilantro Tossed With Fresh Lime Juice

A few years back, I went to Asia to take cooking classes. I traveled from Vietnam to Lao to Thailand. The number one thing I picked up was the way they always used fresh local ingredients, not processed, and always in season. Basically, farm to table. The food is light, healthy, full of vegetables and can be incorporated into any type of fusion cuisine. This salad was my favorite dish. It was served in all three countries, they just changed it up a bit by adding a wide variety of ingredients. Some served it with shredded chicken, some with no meat at all and the vegetables were always changing out for others. The fish sauce gave it just the right amount of salty, umami flavor. The lime juice made it pop fresh. The poached shrimp is now my go to recipe and it is how I cook shrimp everytime I make a fresh shrimp platter. The herbs are always the same, basil, mint and cilantro. The vegetables change. Anything fresh and crunchy julienned or sliced thin. The favorites in Asia are pea pods, green onions, radishes, carrots, shredded napa valley cabbage and red peppers. But you can add or delete any or use and use what you have on hand. Sometimes they use chopped tomatoes. The hotels would make us picnic baskets with this salad to go kayaking for the day. The thing to keep in mind when cooking Asian is that they always try to incorporate 5 flavors in every dish. These are salty, spicy, sour, sweet and bitter. It makes for the most interesting dishes. The shrimp can be made up to two days before and actually gets better overnight. The noodles can also be made the day before and refrigerated, just give them a rinse before using as the noodles tend to stick together before the sauce is added. Make sure that you use only Mung Bean noodles. Rice noodles and others are not a good substitute. It will completely change the dish and not in a good way. Locally, you can buy mung bean noodles as Asian markets such as Lucky or at Whole Foods Marketplace. Most upscale, large grocery stores carry them in the Asian section. See photos below of what they look like. For a shortcut, you can add store bought cooked shrimp, but do try my Vietnamese poached shrimp sometime, it is really delicious and the flavor is just slightly different, but your guests will never know why they are so good.

Cooking Time: 5 minutes

Prep Time: 15 minutes chopping

Ingredients:

Glass noodles (Make sure you are using mung bean noodles. Do not use rice noodles. They do not have the same consistency)

½ cup Shredded Basil

½ cup Shredded Cilantro

¼ cup Shredded Mint

Cucumber, Julienned (1 large Asian or 2 regular medium)

1 ½ Red Peppers. sliced lengthwise thin (or any color or mixed colors)

3 Carrots, (I used tri-color carrots that I used a peeler to make ribbons, you can certainly only use orange carrots) To make it easy, buy carrots already shredded and add 1 cup

2 cups Napa Valley Cabbage, Shredded

Sesame seeds to top. I prefer black for color, but white is also fine

Ingredients Dressing:

⅓ cup Fish Sauce

½ cup Lime Juice

½ cup Water

½ cup light brown sugar

Ingredients: Vietnamese Poached Vietnamese Shrimp

2-3 Star Anise

1 Tbs whole allspice seeds

2 whole cinnamon sticks

1 Tbs black peppercorns

1 lb. shrimp

Directions:

1. Mix all ingredients for the dressing. Stir well. Set aside until sugar dissolved. Refrigerate. You can make this dressing 2 days in advance.

2. For the poached shrimp. Fill a large pot half full of water. Add the spices. Bring to a boil. Boil 10 minutes to make the water flavorful. Add the shrimp for two minutes. Drain quickly. Refrigerate the shrimp

3. For the noodles: Bring a large pot of water filled ⅓ full to a boil. Remove from the heat after it boils. Add the noodles. Let sit for 2 minutes. Drain. Rinse noodles. Noodles are long. Cut noodles shorter with scissors. Refrigerate. These can be made one day in advance. If you made them the day before, make sure to rinse them under water before you make the salad so that they do not stick together.

4. For the salad: Before serving, toss the noodles with the dressing. Add all of the cut vegetables and the dressing.

5. Place the shrimp on top with the fresh cut green onions and sprinkle with the sesame seeds. Serve

6. You can substitute chicken. Just buy a roasted chicken at the store additional, shred it and toss it with extra dressing. You will need to make ½ the quantity of dressing above and toss the chicken into it first so it is not dry. This can also be made with only vegetables.