Chilled Noodles with Vegetables and Crushed Peanuts

Labor Day supposedly marks the end of summer, but the end of our summer’s heat is nowhere in sight. I’m really not complaining since this summer has been so much less intense than last year, but at this point in the season, no matter how relatively mild the year may be, it’s still been hot for many, many days in a row. So, as I was going through old recipe files the other day, something that understandably caught my attention was an old article about chilled noodle salads. Nice, cold, crisp salads are always welcome on hot days, but don’t chilled noodles make a salad seem even colder? Maybe they retain their coldness longer than vegetables do, or maybe I’m just imagining that. Either way, I was convinced that chilled noodles and vegetables was the way to go for a few late summer meals. That article I found in the files was just a starting point. From there, I went on to look up noodle salads in a few books and eventually found the recipe that I worked from for this dish in Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. The cooked and cooled noodles were mixed with a rice vinegar dressing made with ginger and chopped chiles, and then I served it as a composed salad with the vegetables arranged on top. The changes I made to the original were only out of convenience. Rice noodles were easier to find than mung bean noodles, and I had some arame which I used instead of buying the suggested dulse.

The skinny rice noodles were covered with boiling water and left to soften which only takes a couple of minutes. Then, they were drained, rinsed under cold water, and transferred to a big mixing bowl. By immediately tossing the noodles with some dressing, they’re less likely to stick together in a big clump. The dressing was made with rice vinegar, vegetable oil, a little sesame oil, a scan teaspoon of sugar, a big pinch of salt, grated fresh ginger, and finely chopped serrano chiles. I added some chopped peanuts and cilantro leaves to the noodles before tossing with the dressing, and then the bowl was refrigerated while the vegetables were prepped. The dried arame was soaked in cold water for a few minutes until soft, and carrots, cucumber, red bell pepper, and another chile were julienned. Green onions were sliced on a diagonal, and the salad was ready to be composed. A trick I learned from Martha Stewart years ago is to separately dress each item of a composed salad. So, after noodles were placed in bowls for serving, each type of vegetable was tossed in a bowl with a little of the dressing before being placed on top of the noodles. Last, more cilantro and crushed peanuts were used for garnish.

The contrast of crunchy vegetables and peanuts with squishy noodles was a good one, and the ginger and chiles offered pops of flavor. Icy cold, chilled noodles will be a great remedy to our ongoing heat until whenever summer really ends.

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