I have not been a great fan of noodles cold in salads but feel like giving it a go. A quick search has highlighted a few recipes, so I’m going to work my way through them to decide which ones are keepers and which are not.
The main difference between all of them is the dressing flavours, so the four salads below basically have a combinations of noodles/vegetables/nuts or seeds with dressing:
- tamarind & maple syrup sweet/sour dressing
- lime and soy dressing
- lime, ginger, tahini dressing
- lime, soy, vinegar dressing
I imagine that the far-east source of most noodle dishes accounts for the dominance of lime as a sour flavour.
The European equivalent of noodles, Italian pasta, appears in salads in smaller shapes usually and with traditional European dressing flavours of vinegar or lemon and a good olive oil and I’m left wondering why that combination of dressing flavours feels so wrong for noodles or spaghetti.
But they do: I’m certainly not ready to go there yet.
And part of me is wondering whether I could just use the dressing from an earlier hot noodle dish (with fried aubergines) which is based around mirin vinegar and soy. Maybe with a collection of fresh or quickly stir fried baby vegetables such as sweetcorn, sugar snaps and either peas or baby broad beans.
Crunchy noodle salad with mushroom and hazelnut laab (pictured above)
This is a vegan take on laab, an aromatic mincemeat salad from Laos, with added rice noodles to create a fresh dish that is rich and complex enough to make a meal by itself. If, unlike me, you don’t have an allergy to the beggars, you can substitute peanuts for the hazelnuts
Prep 15 min
Cook 35 min
Serves 4
25g basmati rice
200g vermicelli rice noodles
120ml groundnut oil
600g chestnut mushrooms, finely chopped (by hand or in a food processor)
120g raw hazelnuts, lightly roasted and finely chopped
1 tsp red chilli flakes
75ml soy sauce (or fish sauce, for a non-vegan dish)
75ml lime juice (ie, from 4-5 limes)
300g french beans, trimmed and cut in half widthways
½ large cucumber, quartered lengthways, deseeded and cut into 2mm-thick slices on an angle
2 red chillies, deseeded and cut into 5mm-thin strips
¼ red onion, peeled and thinly sliced
5g mint leaves
5g Thai basil leaves
10g coriander leaves
60ml tamarind concentrate (good-quality ready-made or make your own from pulp)
60ml maple syrup
Salt
Toast the rice in a dry small frying pan on a medium heat for 10 minutes, tossing frequently, until golden. Take off the heat and, once cool, grind in a mortar to a fine powder.
Put the noodles in a heatproof bowl, top with a litre of boiling water, cover with clingfilm and leave to soften for 10 minutes. Drain, run under cold water, then drain again.
Heat two tablespoons of the oil in a large saute pan on a medium-high flame. Add the mushrooms (they will pretty much fill up the pan) and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until all the liquid the mushrooms produce has cooked away and the mushrooms are beginning to colour. Add the nuts and chilli flakes, cook for two minutes, then, off the heat, stir through the ground rice and two tablespoons each of soy sauce and lime juice. Leave to cool.
Meanwhile, bring a small pot of water to a boil. Add a teaspoon of salt, followed by the beans, and boil for just two minutes. Drain and run under ice-cold water, to stop them cooking more.
In a large bowl, toss the drained noodles with the beans, cucumber, chilli, onion, three-quarters of the herbs and a quarter-teaspoon of salt.
In a separate bowl, whisk the tamarind, maple syrup, remaining three tablespoons each of lime juice and soy sauce, and 90ml groundnut oil. Pour half of this dressing over the salad and the rest over the laab. Divide the laab between four bowls, spreading it out, then top with the noodles so the laab can still be seen around the edges. Sprinkle with the remaining herbs and serve.
Noodle salad with sprouted beans and cashew nuts
Use whatever noodles you have around for this crisp, light salad. I have suggested brown rice noodles but only because that is what I had in the house. & again, allergies permitting substitute peanuts for the cashews. The dressing is at its most refreshing when sharp, sweet and hot, but tweak it to your liking, adding more palm sugar or lime juice as you wish.
Serves 4
sprouted mung beans 100g
carrot 1 medium-sized
brown rice noodles 100g
cucumber 1 medium-sized
coriander a large handful
mint leaves 15
pak choi 2 crisp, juicy heads
roasted, salted nuts 40g
For the dressing
limes juice of 2
light soy sauce 2 tsp
palm sugar 2 tsp
small hot red or green chilli 1
garlic 2 small young cloves
Rinse the mung beans under icy-cold running water and drain. Scrub the carrot, slice thinly lengthways, then into matchstick-size strips. Pour boiling water over the noodles and leave to soak for 10 minutes till swollen and tender. (Check the cooking instructions on the packet depending on the noodles you are using.)
Lightly peel the cucumber, then slice in half from stalk to tip, scrape out the seeds and core with a teaspoon and discard them. Cut the cucumber into pencil-thick slices. Remove the leaves from the coriander, leave any small ones whole, and roughly chop the larger ones. Do the same with the mint leaves. Shred the pak choi.
Toss the mung beans, carrot, cucumber, pak choy and herbs together. Drain the noodles and toss with the vegetables and herbs.
Make the dressing: mix together the juice of the limes, the light soy and sugar. Finely chop the red chilli and add to the dressing. Peel, smash, then finely chop the garlic. Toss the dressing, vegetables, herbs and noodles together. Finally, coarsely chop the nuts and scatter over the salad.
And then there is Thomasina Mier’s recipe:
Soba noodles with crisp rainbow vegetables and a spicy sesame seed dressing
This riotously bright salad is crunchy, light and, with its flavour-packed dressing, intensely savoury, making it the perfect salad to brighten up a day. A ribbon peeler or mandoline will help with the prep enormously. Instead of nuts, it uses seeds to introduce and element of crunch Serves six.
200g soba or glass noodles
50g frozen soya beans
1 tbsp sesame oil
2 carrots, peeled, then grated or cut into thin ribbons
150g red cabbage, finely shredded
100g mooli or radishes, cut into matchsticks or thin slivers
1 green apple
3 spring onions, finely sliced
1 small bunch coriander, roughly chopped
1 handful mint leaves, roughly torn
1 handful basil leaves (or more coriander), roughly chopped
40g toasted sunflower seeds
25g toasted sesame seeds (a mixture of black and white looks good), to serve
For the dressing
1 thumb-sized chunk fresh ginger, peeled
½ garlic clove
50g tahini
Juice of 1 lime
1 tbsp sriracha (or your favourite style of chilli sauce)
1 bird’s-eye chilli, stalked removed (optional)
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp demerara sugar
(or honey)
3 tbsp sesame oil
25ml water
Cook the noodles in boiling water according to the packet instructions, and add the soya beans for the final minute of cooking, to blanch. Drain and rinse under cold water until cool and no longer clumping together, then put in a large salad bowl and toss with a tablespoon of sesame oil to coat (this will help keep the noodles apart).
Add the carrots, red cabbage and mooli or radishes to the bowl. Peel, core and finely shred the apple directly into the bowl, then add the spring onions and coriander. Add the picked herb leaves and pop the bowl in the fridge while you get on with the dressing (covered, if you’re not eating straight away).
Roughly chop the ginger, put it in a food processor with the garlic and tahini, and blitz until finely chopped. Add the lime, sriracha, chilli (if using), soy sauce and sugar, and blitz again. With the motor running slowly, add the sesame oil bit by bit, followed by the water, and process until the dressing is the consistency of double cream. If the dressing looks as if it has split, put a tablespoon of tahini in a bowl, then slowly whisk in the split dressing – it should quickly come back together. Toss the dressing through the salad and season to taste; it may need more lime juice. Scatter the sesame seeds on top and serve.
And finally a recipe from Meera Sodha which has a more pickled sour dressing:
Vegan Spring vegetable bun cha with tofu and soy-pickled cabbage
This Vietnamese bun cha is all about the dressing, also used to pickle the cabbage. The beancurd can be fried in slices if plated up or cubes if used as a central salad to be served at the table.
Prep 20 min
Cook 35 min
Serves 4
For the soy-pickled cabbage
150g red cabbage, finely shredded
1 tbsp rapeseed oil
2 garlic cloves, peeled and cut into paper-thin slices
1 bird’s eye chilli, cut into paper-thin slices
100ml soy sauce
2 tbsp lime juice
2 ½ tbsp caster sugar
1 tbsp white-wine vinegar
For the tofu
400g extra-firm tofu
Rapeseed oil
Salt and pepper
For the spring veg and noodles
1 onion, peeled and finely sliced
1 red bird’s eye chilli, finely chopped
1.5cm piece ginger, peeled and grated
2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
14 spring onions, thinly sliced
150g frozen petit pois, defrosted
150g frozen broad beans, defrosted
½ tsp salt
200g watercress leaves or spinach, chopped
250g rice vermicelli noodles
To garnish
1 handful salted nuts, smashed
1 handful coriander leaves, chopped
1 handful mint leaves
Put the cabbage in a medium-size heatproof bowl. Heat a tablespoon of oil in a small saucepan over a low heat and, when hot, add the garlic and chilli. Stir-fry for a minute, then add the soy sauce, lime juice, sugar, vinegar and eight tablespoons of water. Bring to a boil, take off the heat and pour over the cabbage.
Lightly press the tofu block between your palms to extract as much water as possible, then cut into 12 or so 5mm-thick slices. Heat two tablespoons of oil in a nonstick frying pan on a medium heat, then lay in the tofu slices (in batches, if need be), season the tops with a big pinch of salt and pepper, and leave to fry undisturbed for four to six minutes, until a crust starts to form. Turn the tofu, season again and fry until crisp and golden on the flip side, too (add more oil, if need be). I have been known to deep fry the tofu. Transfer to a plate lined with kitchen towel.
In the same frying pan, heat a few tablespoons of oil on a high heat, then fry the onion hard for five minutes, so the edges brown but it’s still juicy. Add the chilli, ginger, garlic and spring onions (reserve a handful to decorate), and fry for six minutes, until soft. Add the petits pois, beans and salt, stir-fry for two minutes, then add the watercress. Briefly mix to wilt, then turn off the heat.
Boil the kettle, soak the noodles according to the packet instructions, then drain, refresh and drain again.
Divide the noodles, tofu and veg between four bowls. Put a little cabbage in each bowl, then pour its pickling liquid over the top. Garnish with smashed peanuts, herbs and the reserved spring onions, and serve.