How to make shrimp and glass noodles – a light, bright and delicious summer dish
- The shrimp can be swapped for fish, use seared fillets of white fish, or almost raw fillets of mackerel
- Because they are raw, be sure to slice the vegetables finely, and try not to get glass noodles everywhere
This colourful and delicious dish is inspired by something my friend Phuc cooked for a lunch party, although it is so different from the original version that I doubt she would recognise it. Phuc’s dish used thin fillets of skin-on, seared salmon that she topped with diced raw vegetables and a light, brightly flavoured fish sauce and garlic sauce. When the time came to do this recipe photo shoot, the only salmon fillets I could find were thick slabs, which would have thrown off the proportions, so I used shrimp instead.
The original version didn’t have glass noodles (also called mung bean noodles or vermicelli, fen si or cellophane noodles), but I added them to make the dish more substantial, and to soak up the delicious sauce.
Butterflied shrimp with glass noodles and fish sauce and garlic sauce
If you want to make a dish that’s closer to the original, then use fish. It doesn’t need to be salmon, though – use seared fillets of white fish, or almost raw fillets of mackerel.
Because the carrot and celery are raw, they should be cut into small dice of 5mm or less. If the pieces are too large, the vegetables will be unpleasantly hard.
Glass noodles, which are brittle, come in bundles of different sizes. If you need to break up a bundle to get the amount needed for this dish, put the bundle in a bag and pull it apart in there, otherwise the noodles will fly all over the place.
