This salad is delicious served warm or cold, making it ideal for a buffet or as a side dish at a barbecue. Glass noodles, also called cellophane noodles, Chinese vermicelli, bean thread noodles or crystal noodles, are thin transparent noodles made from mung bean starch (or sometimes yam, potato or cassava starch).
INGREDIENTS:
1kg Blue Mussels, scrubbed and debearded
100g glass noodles, soaked in boiling water until soft
1 carrot, cut into long, thin matchsticks
3 green onions, finely sliced on the diagonal
¼ cup coriander leaves
¼ cup roasted peanuts, chopped
Asian Dressing
2 tablespoons peanut oil
2 tablespoons mirin (see notes)
¼ cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon grated palm sugar
2 small red chillies, seeded and chopped
1 tablespoon grated ginger
METHOD:
Make Asian Dressing: combine all ingredients in a large bowl, stirring to dissolve sugar.
Place Mussels into a large frying pan over high heat, cover and cook for a few minutes, shaking often, until they start to open. As each mussel opens, remove from the pan to a bowl. When cool enough to handle, remove Mussels from the shell and place into the dressing.
Drain noodles, add to dressing with carrot, green onion and coriander. Arrange on a platter, sprinkle with peanuts and serve.
NOTES:
Mirin is a sweet Japanese fortified rice wine used for cooking. True mirin (labelled ‘hon mirin’) contains alcohol, so what is available in supermarkets and Asian grocery stores, and normally used, is non-alcoholic ‘mirin seasoning’.
ALTERNATIVE SPECIES:
Pipis, Surf Clams.