Vietnamese Chicken and Noodle Salad

Ingredients

• 500 g cooked chicken, shredded
• 200 g rice vermicelli
• 2 carrots, cut into matchsticks
• 1 cucumber, seeded and cut into matchsticks
• 1/4 chinese cabbage, shredded fine
• 3 tbsp fish sauce
• juice of 3 limes
• 25 g sugar
• 2 garlic cloves, grated
• 1 red chilli, sliced fine
• a big handful of mint
• a big handful of coriander
• 60 g roasted peanuts, crushed

Method

1. Soak the noodles

   Soak the vermicelli in just-boiled water until tender, then rinse under cold water until completely cool and drain hard. Warm noodles wilt the herbs and vegetables the moment they meet.

2. Cut everything the same size

   Cut the vegetables into fine matchsticks of roughly equal length. This salad is eaten in tangled forkfuls, so nothing should be so large it has to be chased around the bowl.

3. Make nuoc cham

   Whisk the fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, garlic and chilli with 3 tbsp water until the sugar dissolves. Taste it: sour first, then salty, then sweet, then hot. Fix it now — this is the entire seasoning of the dish.

4. Toss the sturdy things

   Combine the noodles, chicken, carrot, cucumber and cabbage with most of the dressing and let it sit 10 minutes.

   10 min

5. Herbs and peanuts last

   Fold the herbs through just before serving and scatter the peanuts over, with the last of the dressing. Herbs added early go black and limp.