Vietnamese Prawn Salad

Cooking on a yoga retreat with Nina

Just back from 5  lovely days of cooking at a yoga retreat in a stunningly beautiful rambling house in Guacin, Andalusia. Accompanying my friend Nina of yogawithnina.com, I prepared two meals a day in what I can only describe as my dream kitchen. What a delight ! So much space and light- with a huge island in the middle with all our oversized Spanish bowls of fruit and vegetables. Thankfully, I had a very appreciative group of lovely women who completely shared my taste in food.  Given that this was a first for me, I didn’t have that much time to photograph but below are a few of the many plates that made it to the table.

One of the dishes I made was a delicious Vietnamese Prawn Salad, a slight adaptation of a Nigella Lawson recipe.  What makes this recipe is that you marinate the prawns in a spicy Vietnamese dressing before adding them to the other ingredients, making them very tasty.

Vietnamese Prawn Salad

Ingredients:

Vietnamese Dressing

2 cloves garlic

2 fresh red chiles- seeded and finely chopped

2 tbs finely minced ginger

4 tbs fish sauce

Juice of 1 lime

4 tbs water

1 tbs sugar

2 tsp vegetable oil

1 tsp sesame oil

Salad

250 gr cooked deveined prawns

200 gr of glass or rice noodles

250 gr of other salad ingredients of your choice – sugar snap peas, bean sprouts, shredded raw spinach, grated carrot etc.

1/2 cup chopped cilantro

3 scallions, sliced

Small handful of fresh mint

Good sprinkling of crushed peanuts to garnish

 Method

• Marinate the prawns in 1/2 cup of the dressing. Coat them well.
• Meanwhile, prepare the noodles as per instructions on the packet.Rinse, drain and cool.
• Mix marinated prawns and noodles with salad ingredients. If using sugar snap peas then plunge into boiling water to soften them slightly. Add another 2 tbs of the Vietnamese dressing. Mix.
• Add the cilantro, scallions, and mint. Add more dressing according to taste and garnish with the crushed peanuts.

 

Nina runs yoga retreats like this four or five times a year and always in stunning locations.  Click here to see her website or contact her to find out what else she has to offer.