Recipe: Vietnamese Cold Noodle Salad
Here’s a quick recipe for the cold rice noodle salad I mentioned in the last newsletter!
I love the versions of this salad you can get from Vietnamese restaurants in Chicago like Ba Le and Nhu Lan. When I decided to try to make them at home, I got a lot of great tips from Andrea Nguyen’s site. (I feel like I’ve been mentioning her work a lot lately? But it’s only because her cookbooks are great, her newsletter is great, and the podcast she’s on is great.)
ANYWAY. These are most often made with chicken or pork, but the great thing about this recipe is how interchangeable it is. The necessary bits are: leafy greens, cold rice noodles, and nuoc cham. Everything else is basically up to you. The other night I made this with sliced longanisa sausages I had picked up at the Filipino grocery, and it was stellar! This salad would be amazing with ginger beef, lemongrass grilled chicken or char siu pork. As I type this, I’m thinking it would be incredible with miso sablefish too! (Putting a pin in that one for the next time we pick up some sablefish.)
How’s the book going, Sarah:
I managed to color another 30 pages this week! I have 122/192 pages finished right now! 30 pages was a harder slog this week than the last one. I have never run a marathon, but I suspect this is what the last mile or two of a marathon feels like. I’m so close to the end, but I’m also very tired. (×_×)
Shameless self-promotion:
Threadless is doing another sale! This one only lasts til tomorrow (7/22) but most tees are only $12. You know, in case you need a shirt with a pizza puff on it.
What I’m into lately:
I have been a little obsessed with the musician Haroumi Hosono lately, and I’ve especially been playing his album HoSoNoVa on repeat this week. It’s really making me want to pick up my accordion again. I have been kind of thinking about treating myself to a new accordion once this new book is finished…
What Toki’s into lately:
Finagling his way into spaces that cats are, as a rule, not supposed to be.
