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. 60-80 grams glass noodles 12-16 fresh shrimp, with body size about 8cm 50 grams small cherry tomatoes 50 grams peeled carrot 50 grams celery 2 garlic cloves, peeled 25 grams palm sugar (or use granulated sugar) 60ml fish sauce 30ml fresh lime juice Fresh mint leaves 1 Put the glass noodles in a bowl, add enough water to cover by about 2.5cm and leave to soak while preparing the other ingredients. 2 Remove the heads and tails from the shrimp (save them to make shrimp stock or shrimp oil for another dish). Use a sharp knife to cut the shrimp down the back from the top to the tail, cutting deep enough that the shrimp can open and lay almost flat, but not so deep that you cut the shrimp in half. Remove the vein from the back of the shrimp. 3 Slice the cherry tomatoes into thin discs. 4 Cut the carrot and celery into small dice. 5 Slice the garlic cloves and put them into the jar of a blender. 6 Roughly chop the palm sugar and add it to the garlic, along with about half the fish sauce. Blend to a smooth purée. 7 With the blender on, pour in the remaining fish sauce and the lime juice through the feed tube. 8 Drain the glass noodles in a colander. 9 Bring a pot of water to the boil. Add the glass noodles and cook until tender but still springy – do not overcook. Use a large flat slotted colander to scoop the noodles from the water, then drain them, rinse with cold water and drain again. 10 Heat the water to boiling. Add the shrimp, cook for about 30 seconds or until they curl, then scoop them from the water. Shake off the excess water, then drain the shrimp on paper towels. Ants climbing a tree – easy Chinese noodles 11 Take a few strands of glass noodles and dip them in the fish sauce/garlic sauce. Taste the noodles to check the seasonings of the sauce and correct, if necessary. 12 Put the glass noodles in a bowl and add about half the sauce. Mix the ingredients to coat the strands with the sauce, then spread the noodles onto a serving plate. 13 Put the shrimp into the bowl that held the noodles, add a little of the sauce and mix briefly, then arrange the shrimp on top of the noodles. 14 Scatter the carrot and celery over the noodles, then add the tomato slices. 15 Cut some of the large leaves of mint into chiffonade and leave the smaller leaves whole. Arrange the mint over the ingredients. 16 Drizzle some of the remaining sauce over the ingredients, then serve immediately. Serves two as a light meal.