A taste of Vietnam

The thing I love about Vietnamese food is that it's always so fresh and colorful. During the recent heat wave we enjoyed this meal; Vietnamese Rice noodle salad (I also added julienned slices of cucumber and savoy cabbage to this recipe), Vietnamese lime chicken wings (seriously finger lickin' good—you must try!), and a refreshing mango cucumber salad (you can adapt this recipe to any tropical or Asian fruit salad). Love that these recipes garnish with peanuts!

Vietnamese Rice noodle salad

4 oz rice noodles
1 cup finely sliced cabbage
1/4 cup rice vinegar (not seasoned)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon Asian fish sauce
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 carrot, coarsely shredded
3 scallions, thinly sliced crosswise

1 cup loosely packed mixed fresh cilantro, min (and also basil leaves)
1/4 cup chopped unsalted dry-roasted peanuts

1. Drop noodles into boiling water, turn of heat and let soak for in hot water for 10 minutes, then drain and pat dry. To make the dressing, whisk together vinegar, sugar, fish sauce, and salt in a large bowl until sugar and salt are dissolved. Add noodles, carrot, scallions, herbs, and peanuts, tossing to combine.

Vietnamese mango and cucumber salad

one diced mango

1/4 of an English cucumber with skin, diced

1/3 of a small onion, diced or 1 sliced scallion 

cilantro leaves
(do add diced red pepper,
I just didn't have any this day!)

dressing

1 tblsp honey 

1 tblsp Asian fish sauce

2 tblsp lime juice or rice wine vinegar 

grated ginger

1 clove minced garlic

dash of Srirracha chili sauce 

You may also like this other Vietnamese food post with
Szechuan buckwheat noodles salad and grilled Vietnamese style shrimp