Thai-style buckwheat & zucchini noodle salad with shrimp & avocado

I made some noodles.

I bundled them up in a bowl full of thinly shaved ribbons of zucchini, tomatoes, juicy prawns and creamy chunks of avocado. And if that’s not already sounding better than last nights take-away, I doctored it up with some outrageous Thai flavours. All of which leads up to a heck of a lot of wow buzzing around your mouth. If ya know what I mean. Sure it looks like a whole load of five-a-day healthy greens and belly-filling fiber but for once I’m asking you to look past their nutritious star qualities give them a chance on taste alone. The dressing is tangy, sweet, hot, spicy, raw- it takes your average ranch dressing pokes it’s eyes out and spits on it’s plastic bottled face. Childish behaviour for any salad condiment-perhaps; but give it a chance and I think you’ll find far from juvenile. And don’t worry- I won’t tell if I catch you slurping-up any leftover juices before you wash the dishes. It’s only natural when something tastes this good.

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Thai-style buckwheat & zucchini noodle salad with shrimp & avocado

Please don’t let the long list of ingredients put you off making this- most of the salad ingredients are just suggestions and you can mix and match with what you have to hand. The dressing is mostly pantry ingredients- and if your a Thai-enthusiast like me you’ll always have limes and birds eye chillies at home (I keep a huge back of the latter in my freezer). The dressing needs to be made fresh-to-order but don’t feel that you have to stick with my noodle/veg combination, this dressing is practically drinkable so try in on your own combination.

Serves: really it should serve 4….but it seems to only serve 2 in my house, must be all that marathon training.

Diet facts: Super healthy! Swap the shrimp for roasted butternut squash cubes for a veggie version.

120g bundle of buckwheat noodles, or other noodles
1 medium zucchini
150g/5 oz small peeled & cooked shrimp (70/100 per lb)
handful snow peas (mangetout)
1 small avocado
4 large vine ripened cherry tomatoes (or 8 small)
leaves from a few sprigs of mint
small handful skinned and roasted peanuts

for the dressing
4 spring onions
1 birds eye red chilli
1 large garlic clove
1arge bunch coriander (cilantro)
2 juicy limes
3-4 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp sesame oil (optional)
1 tsp fish sauce
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp brown sugar

• Get a large pot of water on to boil for the noodles. Once it comes up to the boil cook the noodles according to the packet directions (but test them a minute before they suggest). Drain them in a colander and rinse until cold.

• Meanwhile, get on with the dressing. Trim the spring onions and then thinly slice the white and light green part and set aside. Finely chop the green part and place in a medium-sized bowl.

• Very finely dice the chilli (seeds and all) and place in the bowl. Grate the garlic on a fine microplane or dice and add to the bowl. Pick the leaves from the coriander and set aside. Chop the stems finely and add to the bowl. Zest and juice the limes and add to the bowl.

• Mix in the remaining dressing ingredients and check for taste. If it is too sour for your taste you can add a little more sugar or olive oil.

• Back to the salad. Shave the zucchini using a T-shaped vegetable peeler (or you can do this on a mandolin). Then lie all the slices on top of one another and cut into thinnish strips (I cut mine into 3) Place in a large bowl with your drained and cooled noodles and add the cooked prawns.

• Roughly the snow peas into something like 3 pieces and add to the bowl. Peel, seed and chop the avocado and add to the bowl. Chop the tomatoes in 6 or 8 pieces and add to the bowl along with the reserved coriander leaves, reserved sliced spring onions (white and light green parts) and your mint leaves. Roughly chop the peanuts and set aside for a minute.

• Toss the salad together with the dressing and then serve in bowls topped with the chopped peanuts.