Asian Noodle Salad with Lemongrass Chicken

This noodle dish is considered a healthy food as more than half of the dish is fresh vegetables, basically it is a salad dish and we have a bundle of noodles and grilled chicken to complete a one dish meal food.

                                                                                                            

This dish can be lunch or supper and the process is pretty straight forward. You can find all the ingredients at Asian grocery stores.

For 3 servings

Ingredients

2                   Chicken breast

1                   Lemongrass, cut and crushed

2 tbsp           Vegetable oil

1¹⁄₂ tbsp           Soy sauce

1 tbsp           Oyster sauce

1 tbsp           Honey or sugar

½ tsp            Ground pepper

 ¹⁄₆ tsp           Salt

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150 – 200 g.  Rice Vermicelli

1 cup             Bean sprouts

1 cup             Cucumber, shredded

¾ cup            Carrot, shredded

6 slices         Tomato

3 pieces        Lettuce

3 branches    Thai basil

¾ cup           Ground peanut

1 tsp             Salt

2 tbsp           Vegetable oil

Salad dressing

2 cakes       Palm sugar(see picture at Herbs page)

5 tbsp         Water

2                Fresh Thai chilies, chopped (adjustable)

2 ½ tbsp     Lime juice (adjustable)

2 ½ tbsp    Fish sauce (adjustable, each brand of fish sauce has different level of sodium)

You can also follow the instructions from the video.

Instructions 

1. Cut lemongrass into small pieces, and crush it with a mortar and pestle for 4-5 minutes or until soft and wet.
2. Marinate Chicken with crushed lemongrass, veg. oil, soy sauce, oyster sauce, honey or sugar, ground pepper and salt for a few hours or leave it in the fridge over night if you prepare it the night before.
3. Making salad dressing, place a small pot on medium heat, and add palm sugar and water. Cook palm sugar until it is melted and let it sit for a minute after bubbling, and remove from heat. Let it cold. Add chopped chilli, lime juice and fish sauce, and stir to mix.
4. Bring a medium saucepan of water or just enough to cover rice vermicelli to boil over medium heat. Add 1 tsp salt and rice vermicelli, and cook until noodles are tender, about 3 minutes. Drain in a colander or strainer and transfer to a bowl.

5. Grill the chicken; remove lemongrass from chicken with a spoon or folk. You can use oven grill or charcoal grill, grill two sides of chicken until it is cooked. Cut into pieces the size you wish.
6. For serving, place a bundle of noodles in an individual serving bowl and put a piece of lettuce beside or under the noodles, and add and arrange tomato slices, cucumber shredded, carrot shredded, bean sprouts and ground peanut nicely. Garnish with Thai basil. Pour in the salad dressing when you are ready to eat.