Noodle Salad with Crispy Shallots, Asian Herbs and Pan-fried Butterfly Prawns

Ingredients

Dressing
3 tbsp sweet chilli sauce
1 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp sunflower oil
Juice of 2 limes

Method
Heat enough sunflower oil to half fill a medium saucepan and fry in small batches the 8 finely sliced shallots until golden brown and crisp. Drain well on kitchen towel and set to one side.

Meanwhile, toss together the cooked rice noodles, the shallot rings, red pepper, beansprouts, mint, coriander, ginger, red chilli and the grated lime rind.

Mix together all the ingredients to make the dressing.

Split the cooked tiger prawns in half just up to the tail and fan out like a butterfly. Heat a frying pan with 1 tbsp of sunflower oil and toss in the prawns. Fry for 1-2 minutes, tossing the pan at regular intervals. Drain.

To serve, place a portion of the rice noodle salad on a plate or in a rice bowl, garnish with three prawns per portion and spoon over the dressing. Top with a pile of the crispy shallots. This dish can also be served with a dash of soy sauce.

Tips
This dish is also good as a main course salad, served for example at a barbeque

You could use ordinary peeled prawns instead of tiger prawns tossed through the salad

If you do not want to garnish the dish with the crispy shallots, for a low fat option you could garnish instead with thinly sliced shallots tossed in chopped coriander

Instead of prawns, for a completely vegetarian dish use pan fried shiitake or ordinary mushrooms

Could be served as a main course with Thai prawn crackers

This recipe by Rachel Green, TV’s ‘Flying Cook’, is supplied by www.ukshallot.com