Vermicelli Salad

[judydawn]

I tasted a version of this at a BBQ years ago and my friend eventually hunted down who bought it to ask for the recipe.  The recipe part was easy to follow but with the dressing, she only gave me what was in it and not the quantities.  I have never been any good at knowing what ratio to use in salad dressings so today when I made this salad, I used Tenina's Vietnamese Dressing from her Dinner Spinner booklet. (dressing given to me was chilli sauce, soy sauce & rice wine vinegar - simple if only I knew how much of each).

These are the quantities I used to make 4 serves.

2 cakes instant rice vermicelli noodles (total weight was 80g) - original recipe used bean thread noodles (opaque ones) but I couldn't find any today.
1 carrot cut into 5cm long batons
100g celery sliced on the diagonal 1cm thick
3 spring onions sliced on the diagonal - white and green parts
1/4 of a large red capsicum cut into batons
6 medium button mushrooms sliced 1/2 -  1 cm thick
A batch of your favourite Asian dressing.

Place the noodle cakes into a bowl and cover with boiling water.  Leave 3 minutes, rinse in cold water and drain.  Cut into 6 cm lengths with scissors and set aside.  If you are not using the instant variety of vermicelli noodles, follow directions on the packet for cooking.

Heat the TM bowl on varoma for 2 minutes.
Add 1 tbspn peanut oil (or oil of choice) and heat 30 sec/varoma/speed 1.
Add celery & carrot and cook 5 mins/varoma/speed 1/reverse.
Add spring onions, red capsicum and mushrooms & cook 4 mins/varoma/speed 1/reverse.

Remove vegies and spread out on a plate to cool.
Mix the vegies with the noodles and pour in some dressing - I probably added 1/3 cup but it's up to your own taste here.

Recipe can be made in advance.
You can use any vegetables which are suitable for stir frying.
Serve with cold meat, add some chicken to the salad or serve with hot meat such as chicken skewers or marinated chicken breasts.

[Kimmyh]

Yummy Judy. Similar to what I did earlier this week. I used soba noodles and raw vegies. Will try your way next time by stir frying vegies.

[judydawn]

It probably does taste different than raw vegies Kimmy, has to add flavour I would think.  Be interesting to hear what you think when comparing the 2 recipes.

[Cornish Cream]

Looks delicious Judy

[Cuilidh]

This sounds lovely and tasty. 

Like you, Judy, I wouldn't know how much of each of the sauce ingredients to use either and I don't have the Dinner Spinners, so, can anyone suggest an appropriate dressing?

[mcmich]

Thanks Judy - I'm going to try this over the weekend. 

[judydawn]

Marina, I've spent a bit of time looking for a dressing similar to that which was given to me but with quantities.  I found this one on taste.com which is the closest I could find - soy & chilli dressing so I played around with it and replaced the chilli and sugar with home made sweet chilli sauce and came up with this which is the 3 ingredients I was given initially.

I just put the ingredients in a jar and shook them then microwaved in a mug on high for 2.5 minutes (it bubbles over so use something larger than a big mug) to thicken it slightly.

60 ml rice wine vinegar
60 g sweet chilli sauce
2 tbspn dark soy sauce

Ingredients most of us have in the pantry, so easy & so cheap to make.

Let me know if you use it on the salad and if you like it, I will incorporate it into the recipe.