Warm Vietnamese Roast Chicken Noodle Salad

This warm salad looks stunning with its array of colours, is very fresh tasting and is ideal for a family dinner or for entertaining friends. Whilst mostly served in the warmer months, I have certainly served it as an entrée in winter and as a lunch or dinner for friends all year round. The flavours come out so strongly once the light Nuoc Cham dressing is mixed through the rice stick noodles, chicken and various vegetables and herbs

Although the ingredient list seems quite long, the dish comes together very quickly and easily especially if you use a cooked supermarket chicken as I do!

Ingredients

1 cooked roast chicken

200 gms rice stick noodles

2 packets of snow peas

1 red capsicum, preferably one of the long King Sweetie varieties – cut into rounds

1 bunch of spring onions, finely sliced

1 packet of beansprouts

2 carrots, julienned

1 bunch coriander, coarsely chopped

Handful/half a cup of mint leaves, finely chopped

Approx. 8 kaffir lime leaves, very finely chopped- as small as you can…keep chopping and chopping!

Nuoc Cham dressing

1/3 cup of lime juice – try to use fresh if not too pricy

1/4 cup of fish sauce

1 red chilli (optional) – remove seeds and thinly slice

2 tbs soft brown sugar

1/4 cup of water

Combine the ingredients, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Taste and adjust favours as you like

Cooking instructions

 Well actually, apart from blanching the snow peas and around 2 mins “cooking” the noodles, just assembling required!

1. Remove skin from chicken and shred into bite size pieces using as much as you can of the chicken
2. Put noodles in a saucepan of boiling water, cover and leave for 2 mins – instructions vary by product, so basically follow the instructions on the packet! When done, rinse under cold water and drain
3. Blanch/steam the snow peas for max. 2 mins (if you want crunchier, less time). Slice thinly
4. Place noodles at the bottom of your large salad bowl (you might want to cut up the noodles just a bit and heat them quickly under hot water first)
5. Add the chicken and then the other salad/ veg ingredients and mix together – the dish should look amazing with the different colours and textures!
6. Add 3/4 of the Nuoc Cham dressing and again, mix thoroughly – leave the rest of the dressing for those that want more and enjoy

Serves 4