David Atherton's recipe for smoky rice noodle salad

Smoking has been used to preserve food since ancient times. Today it is also used to add extra flavour to food – and I love it. I stumbled across the idea of using lapsang souchong tea to create smoked noodles and there is no going back for me. This recipe is fresh, quick, easy, and smoky. You can use what you have in your cupboard – it’s a great time to experiment. I eat this noodle salad for lunch, but if you want to make it for dinner you can quickly pan-fry fish or tofu with soy sauce to make it more substantial.

Serves 2

For the dressing
50ml vinegar (rice, white wine or cider etc)
40g something sweet (honey, syrup or sugar)
30g nut butter (peanut, almond or cashew etc)
5ml hot sauce (chilli, sriracha or peri peri)
1 tsp salt
2 cloves of garlic, minced
30ml sesame oil
10ml soy sauce

For the noodles
1 carrot
½ cucumber
1 mango
30g herbs (coriander/mint/basil)
Roasted and salted peanuts
5 lapsang souchong tea bags
150g rice noodles

Start by adding all the dressing ingredients to a jar and shaking it. Put aside.

Prepare the vegetables. Peel the carrot into ribbons, cut the cucumber and mango into batons, roughly chop the herbs and smash the peanuts in a pestle and mortar. Toss all of these together in a large bowl.

Boil 500ml of water in a medium saucepan with the lapsang souchong tea bags. Once they have stewed for five minutes, remove the tea bags and add the noodles, simmer for one minute, then allow to sit for three minutes. Take two tablespoons of the water and add to the dressing. Drain the rest and add the noodles to the bowl with the vegetables.

Pour over the dressing, toss and eat straight away.

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