Vietnamese-Style Noodle Salad

Pete and I were invited to a friend's place for dinner. They were cooking the main and I had the choice of picking between entrée and dessert. I chose entrée. As most of you already know by now, I am not a keen baker and my baked good are never quite right so dessert was not really an option for me.

I wanted to make something easy which did not require much cooking so I browsed through the coles magazines that I had in my room and found this recipe.

INGREDIENTS
200g rice vermicelli noodles
2 small carrots
1 lebanese cucumber
1 red capsicum
500g cooked peeled prawns
1/3 cup basil leaves
1/3 cup mint leaves
1/2 cup coriander leaves
1 cup bean shoots, tails trimmed
1/3 unsalted roasted cashews

DRESSING
1 1/2 tbsp brown sugar
1 1/2 tbsp fish sauce
1/4 cup lime juice
1 small red chilli, finely chopped
1 small garlic clove, crushed

1. Place noodles in a large heatproof bowl and cover with boiling water. Stand for 5 mins, then drain into a colander. Immediately rinse under cold running water, and drain well.
2. Cut carrots, cucumber, and capsicum into thin strips. Take handfuls of noodles and squeeze out any remaining water, then place into large serving bowl. Combine with the vegetables, prawns, herbs and bean shoots.
3. Combine the dressing ingredients in a small screwtop jar and shake well. Just before serving, drizzle over salad and toss to combine. Sprinkle the cashews over the top and serve.

For once, I actually followed the recipe to a tee except I did not have bean shoots and instead of prawns, I had pan-fried rare beef instead. The reason I had to change from prawns to beef was because Pete left the prawns at home. It still turned out amazing :)