A Cool Noodle For A Hot Spell

About author / Amy Powell

World traveler; gourmet 30 minute meals; lover of exotic ingredients; winner on FoodTV's Chefs vs City; graduate French Culinary Institute. Her recipes will tantalize your taste buds.

There’s barely a day when I would turn down a plate of noodles. That being said, the pastas of winter, like artery coating carbonara or dense meat-filled tortellini, are hardly the stuff of bikini-ready bodies and scorching summer heat. But hot as it may be, noodles still call my name far into the summer months.

Luckily plates of long, skinny satisfying noodles do not need to wait for sweater weather. As anyone familiar with the foods of South East Asia can tell you, rice noodles can fill a craving but without the weight of their wheat noodle brethren.

Rice noodles come in all sizes, from flat and wide like pappardelle to whisper thin like angel hair. The wide ones are almost eaten steaming hot, showing up most frequently in stir fries like Thailand’s pad see ew, a mixture of noodles tossed with broccoli, meat, egg, and a soy based sauce. Thin noodles are a bit more versatile, finding their way into all sorts of dishes across South East Asia, from soto ayam, the chicken noodle soup of Indonesia, to Crossing the Bridge Noodles, the famous noodle soup of Yunnan, China, chock full of delicious treasures from ham to raw quail egg.

Served hot or cold, soup or stir fry, I find the lightness of rice noodles work well all summer long. For those particularly hot days, the ones where any hot food would only add to the general weather misery, I look to Vietnam for my noodle inspiration and a plate of rice noodles best served cold.

Bun, the word for noodles in Vietnam, show up in all parts of the country, from the famous turmeric-dill fish and noodles dish of Hanoi to the pho hawkers of Ho Chi Minh. One of the most popular bun dishes at Vietnamese restaurants across this country combines the best of the grill with salad and of course, noodles.

In this dish, a plate of soaked and just cooked vermicelli rice noodles are topped with a variety of traditional condiments such as peanuts, mint, basil, shredded carrot, and maybe a pickle like Daikon radish. A whole heap of greens is piled on, usually taking up half the bowl.

Top it with just about any protein from skewered, grilled shrimp to barbecue pork chop to seared beef. The salad-meets-noodle plate then comes with a side dish of sweet-sour sauce made from lime juice, chilies, sugar, and oil.

Making this dish at home on a recent night, I was struck by the many variations I create just by swapping out, say, the typical romaine lettuce for pea greens that I had just picked up from the farmer’s market. In my refrigerator I had a jar of tamarind concentrate, a popular Vietnamese flavoring for marinades and sauces. I added a heaping spoonful to my vinaigrette for a tart-sweet kick. As for protein, given that just about anything goes, I marinated boneless chicken thighs in a mixture of lemongrass, garlic, ginger, and cilantro. Come dinnertime the chicken needed only a quick turn in the grill pan to fill my house with the fragrance of Saigon.

With barely a burner turned on, a plate of heaping noodles towering with greens, topped with lemongrass chicken and cut through with a tart-sweet-spicy sauce, this was just the filling yet light summer meal I had hoped it would be. Judging by the heat of the summer so far, I have a whole lot of rice noodles ahead of me.

Serves/Makes: 4

***Lemongrass Chicken***

• 1 1/4 pound boneless, skinless, chicken thighs
• salt and pepper
• 2 stalks lemongrass
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
• 2 limes, zest and juice
• 2/3 cup vegetable oil

***Vermicelli Salad***

• 8 ounces rice vermicelli noodles
• 1 large shallot
• 2 tablespoons tamarind puree
• 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
• 1 lime, juiced
• 2 teaspoons fish sauce
• 3/4 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon garlic chili sauce
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 4 cups greens (chopped romaine, pea shoots, shredded butter lettuce)
• mint
• cilantro
• Thai basil
• 1/2 cup toasted chopped peanuts