thursday recipe: rice noodle salad with fresh herbs and cashews

Summer is in full swing and with the festive eating over it is time for some lighter meals with fresh flavours.

This recipe is inspired by my friends Rachel and John who own Feast catering in Sorrento. Beautiful rice paper rolls with hoi sin dipping sauce are a favourite on their menu and their garden is abundant with fresh herbs for Asian cooking.

I returned home from visiting them with some Thai basil and mint, the beginning of today's salad which could easily be the filling for rice paper rolls.

I had rice paper noodles in the cupboard, cucumber, carrot, capsicum in the fridge, red onion and cashews on hand and celery from the garden. The salad was shaping up.

The highlight of any dish with such simple ingredients as this is of course the dressing, or dipping sauce in the case of rice paper rolls.

We enjoyed the salad with chicken schnitzel as you can see pictured but you can have it as is or add some chilli beef, pork, fish, tempeh or tofu, even boiled eggs would work well.

I hope you are keeping cool, or warm depending on your hemisphere and that the school holidays are going smoothly for everyone.

As one of my friends whose daughter is all grown up said to me the other day 'enjoy those boys'.
It was good reminder, school holidays and childhood are fleeting.

Embrace the fun, the squabbles and everything in between.

Happy cooking x

Rice noodle salad with fresh herbs and cashews

125g rice noodles (vermicelli) cooked
1 carrot cut into thin sticks (julienne)
1 cucumber cut into thin sticks (julienne)
1/2 red capsicum cut into thin sticks
1/2 red onion finely sliced (spring onion would work well too)
1 stick of celery finely sliced
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh mixed herbs I used Thai basil and mint because that's what I had - coriander and/or Vietnamese mint would be good too
1/2 cup roasted cashews roughly chopped

To make

Set aside 1 tablespoon of chopped herbs and 1 tablespoon cashews.
Combine all ingredients in a large salad bowl and sprinkle remaining herbs and cashews on top.

Dressing

1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1/2 tsp raw honey
1 small garlic clove crushed

Mix all ingredients in a small bowl and let stand for 1/2 an hour to let the garlic infuse flavour.
Pour over salad and toss. Chilli lovers may like to sprinkle with fresh or dried chilli flakes.