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In Murcia we’ve had some really hot days recently. In our house, that often means eating well-filled salads! I’ve been crazy about Asian noodle salads for quite a while now. I love soy, sesame oil and of course fish sauce. With a touch of lime and chili you have the best taste in the world!
This salad brings all these flavors together, but what really completes the salad is the special crispy eggplant I recently made with panko, which is my latest addiction! Have you ever used panko in your kitchen? It’s so much better than breadcrumbs or even crumbled rusk!
This salad really takes you to seventh heaven! The ngoc nam really tops it off, but you don’t have to add it if you don’t like shocking Asian sauces. With the ‘regular’ dressing you will also be in heaven!
The best part is that you can choose the filling and types of noodles yourself. Want more raw vegetables than lettuce? The choice is yours. Do you want more spiciness or a sweeter taste? Then a little mirin is always nice!
Well, grab your pans and your panko, because we’re going to get started!
Ingredients
4 large bowls – 40 minutes
Toppings
- 100 gr noodles per person
- 100 gr radishes, sliced
- half a bunch of coriander, finely chopped
- 100 g cherry tomatoes, cut in half
- sesame seeds
- chili flakes
- 1 spring onion, cut into pieces
Crispy egg plant
- 400 gr eggplant (two small ones)
- a plate of panko
- 4 tablespoons of flour
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- salt
- pepper
- 1 tablespoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon ginger powder
- 5 tablespoons of water
Soy lime dressing
- 1 lime
- 2 tablespoons of mirin
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 4 cm ginger
- little coriander (finely chopped)
- 7 tablespoons of soy sauce
- 5 tablespoons fish sauce
- 1 spring onion
Ngoc nam
- 4 tablespoons fish sauce
- 4 tablespoons of water
- 1 lime
- 1 tablespoon of mirin
- 1 chili pepper, sliced
- spring onion
Preparation
Wash the eggplants and pat them dry. Cut them into slices about 1 cm thick and set them aside. Mix the flour with the water and then the cornflour. Add the spices and stir everything together well. If the mixture is too thick or grainy, add another tablespoon of water and let it sit for a while before stirring again.
Put a pan on the fire with a layer of sunflower oil and put a plate with a paper towel on it next to it. Then cook the noodles according to the instructions on the package. Sprinkle the panko in a deep plate, with a pinch of salt. Dip an eggplant slice in the flour mixture and then in the panko. Make sure all sides are well covered by the panko and immediately lower the slice into the hot oil.
Let the eggplant slice get nice and brown. Don’t worry too much about the eggplant. It will cook on its own and will also become soft enough. Turn the eggplant slice over, so that the other side can also brown nicely. When it’s done, put it on the paper plate. Repeat this until all the eggplant slices are cooked. Do this in batches and don’t throw them all in the oil at the same time. The slices should have room to brown at their leisure.
Meanwhile, make the sauces: mix all the ingredients of each of the two sauces together. Rinse the noodles under cold water. Set your plates or bowls down, and fill them with first a heap of noodles, then a bit of the soy lime dressing, then the toppings and on top of that the grilled eggplant pieces!
Drizzle over a little ngoc nam, a little soy lime dressing, some sesame seeds, and chili flakes, and then it’s time to grab your chopsticks!
Voilà, a salad that has conquered my heart and my stomach!
The result
It may seem like a lot of effort because you have to bake the eggplant with the panko first, but at the end you really have a nice bite! And for once I’m very happy that I don’t use raw egg for the crust around the eggplant, because I’m just not a fan of that at all.
Apparently cornflour really goes a long way, and you can replace raw eggs as a binding agent for breading. Who would have thought that? And if I could find a vegan fish sauce, I could almost call this whole salad vegan!
Well, so you see that you can really go in all directions with vegetables, panko and noodles! The ngoc nam is a sauce I could drink just like my grandmother who lived in Vietnam! I really love it with noodles or rice rolls and I can’t get enough of it! Have a nice day, my friends, and see you soon!
