Friday Food: Layered Crunchy Noodle Salad

I think I shall adopt, as my personal motto: better late than never. I am starting the year as I mean to go on, ie eventually getting around to things. It is far too hot to cook and so this week I am assembling a layered crunchy noodle salad from the Jan/Feb Taste magazine. 

There is a fair bit of slicing and dicing, which a machine or device would do more quickly, but I don’t mind cutting and chopping. In an amazing turn of events, I managed to follow the recipe precisely, all except for the optional black sesame seeds. Mine were the ordinary pale kind.

I think a lot of this salad’s wow factor rests in choosing the correct serving bowl. Mine is too wide, it needs to be tall and narrow with a 2 litre capacity. The dressing is on the bitter, rather than the sweet, side but it pairs well with the salad.

If you are looking for an alternative, I can recommend the Layered Garden Salad. There is a little more work as you actually have to turn on the stove and cook bacon etc, but it is a sweeter salad. I think all layered salads improve with time, and are best prepared a day ahead. I know this is at odds with the current advice not to dress salads until right before serving, but the layered salad is a different beast.

Of course, you can substitute and add to your heart’s content.

 

Layered Crunch Noodle Salad        serves 4-6

• 1/2 wombok cabbage, shredded
• 2 carrots, peeled and cut into thin slices
• 100g snow peas, sliced thinly lengthways
• 3 radishes, thinly sliced
• 2 Lebanese cucumbers, peeled into ribbons. I cut mine into chunks
• 100g packet crunchy noodles
• 3 spring onions, sliced diagonally
• black sesame seeds, optional

for the dressing:

• 1 cup Kewpie dressing
• 40ml rice wine vinegar
• 2 tspn hot mustard
• 1/2 tspn sesame oil

 

Prepare the dressing first. Put all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk until combined. Refrigerate and let the flavours develop. I left it for half an hour.

And now it is just a case of assembling the salad.

First the wombok cabbage.

next the carrot,

and then the snow peas.

now drizzle the dressing over the salad.

Add the cucumber,

and radish, and finally the spring onions, crunchy noodles and sesame seeds.

I think this is best eaten the day after it is made, though if refrigerated carefully it may keep another day without becoming soggy.

Comments

[Kristen Chambers]

Pretty salad, and healthy to boot.

[Cakelaw]

Sounds good! It's definitely salad weather.