I often make noodle salads but am sometimes disappointed by boring old soya and ginger dressings. The wagamama cookbook offers some great alternative noodle dressings. This one is definitely my favourite. It’s good hot or cold and the leftovers make a great lunchbox snack. There are a couple of ingredients in this dish that you may not have lying about your cupboard, but it’s worth getting them, as you’ll soon find lots more uses for them. I promise you, if you make this dish you will keep coming back for more. It’s addictive and works great with an ice cold beer.
Here’s how:
– 1 small sweet potato cut into small 1 inch chunks
– 2 red peppers sliced thinly
– half a butternut squash cut into one inch chunks
– 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
– 1 large onion sliced into thick wedges
– 200g of noodles – soaked in boiling water until cooked and drained in cold water
– 100g of mangetout, sliced diagonally
– 2 spring onions finely chopped
– handful of roasted salted peanuts, finely chopped
Miso Dressing
This recipe makes about half a jam-jar full of dressing. It keeps for about a week in the fridge. It can be added to any noodle dish to give a sweet and spicy kick.
– 2 tablespoons of rice wine vinegar (you can buy this in any good supermarket/ Asian Market)
– 1 tablespoon of white wine/ sake
– 3 tablespoons of sugar
– 4oz of yellow miso paste (Available in any Asian Market /good supermarket)
– teaspoon of chopped red chilli
– 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
– 2 teaspoons of shichimi ( Also called Chinese seven spice pepper – available in Asian Market/good supermarket)
Coriander & Chilli dressing
This recipe makes about half a jam-jar full of dressing. It keeps for about a week in the fridge; however don’t add the coriander until you are ready to serve
– 1 large or 2 small garlic cloves, crushed
– 1 inch of ginger, peeled and grated
– 1 small red chill deseeded and chopped small
– 2 tablespoons of fish sauce – omit fish sauce if vegetarian
– 3 tablespoons of soy sauce (I use Kikkoman less salt)
– 6 tablespoons of vegetable oil
– handful of coriander – roughly chopped.
To make the coriander and chilli dressing, with either combine all the ingredients together in a bowl, or if you prefer a finer dressing; blend all the ingredients in a food processor.
Meanwhile preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Place the onions, butternut, peppers and sweet pepper on a baking tray with the vegetable oil. Place in the oven for about 20 minutes until soft and tender. Take out of the oven and leave aside.
To make the miso dressing, heat the rice wine vinegar, wine/sake and sugar until the sugar has dissolved. Add the miso paste, oil and shichimi and stir until smooth. Done.
In a large bowl, mix the cooked noodles with the cooked vegetables, the sliced mange tout and the chopped spring onions. Mix in three tablespoons of the miso dressing and two tablespoons of the chilli coriander dressing. Mix in well using a tongs. Serve on a plate or bowl and garnish with chopped fresh coriander and chopped peanuts.
What worked:
I stupidly turned on the grill instead of the oven and put the vegetables under the grill for 5 minutes before realising my mistake. The great thing about my faux pas is it did give the vegetables a nice grilled flavour….I might just deliberately make the same mistake next time!
The leftovers make a great lunch or late night snack.
What didn’t work:
The noodles I used were almost too fine. Rice noodles vary in thickness from 0.015 to 0.02 inches. I prefer the thicker ones when I can get them.
