Spring Vietnamese-Inspired Noodle Bowl

Feeds 2-3

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If you asked me where I'd rather be in January of 2020, I would have answered, without so much as a half-blink, New Zealand. The biting cold of the London air coupled with its' beautifully drab skies, not so much as letting us even have a peek of sun, meant I would've definitively answered New Zealand. Insert October 2021 and I would kill a small duck (if you know me you know I could never) to be in London. Give me a fluffy coat and piss-weak rain. Do it.

Through extensive journalling and possibly a tad too much self-reflecting, I can garner two conclusions from this. Firstly, there is a part of me that thrives off of frenetic, frantic, chaotic go-go-go. I live for those days I've run ragged off a red double-decker, weaved through crowds of people, all somehow much taller than myself, and made it to a theatre just before the doors closed. London lives in my bones and I will weather it's continually crappy climate until exhaustion prevails. Secondly, and the biggy, I am the plot-point of a good character-driven movie. The grass is always greener she feels, until she stood on the grass and some patches were indeed greener but most were that same mossy-brown she was standing on not too long ago.

So I decided that November, 2021 I was going to look for why my grass is so stupidly green that everyone else's just looks like it's covered in a layer of soot. Yes, even Oprah's. First thing's first - it's spring-time in New Zealand which means strawberries, fat avocados, cheap cucumbers, and abundance of, you guessed it, green green grass.

Recipe

Ingredients

Dressing

• Zest of 1 lime or 1 lemon

• 1/4 cup of sugar

• 1/4 cup of fish sauce

• 1/4 cup of rice wine vinegar

• 3/4 cup of water

Salad

• 2-3 portions of udon noodles (1 portion per person)

• 1 large cucumber, deseeded, and sliced into ribbons¹

• 1 large carrot, peeled, and sliced into ribbons

• 2 radishes, thinly sliced

• 1 avocado, thinly sliced

• 1 large chilli, thinly sliced

• 2 spring onions, thinly sliced

• 1/2 cup of roasted salted peanuts

• 1 large bunch of mint, finely chopped

• 1 large bunch of coriander, roughly chopped

Method

Dressing

1. Mix together all ingredients and simmer gently in a small pot over a low heat until all the sugar has dissolved. Remove the pot from the heat and let it cool.

Salad

1. Cook the noodles according to packet instructions then rinse them under cold water to remove any excess starch.

2. Prepare all of your vegetables then get ready to plate up.

3. Pour half the sauce over your noodles (save the other half for something else!) Place your vegetables in a bowl (except the avocado). Toss everything together.

4. Place the avocado on at the end along with more peanuts, and sliced chillies.

5. ENJOY!

Notes:

1. It will get difficult to peel after a while, so just chop the rest of it up and put it in the salad for a different bit of texture.

Stay Salty,

Romy xx