Recipe: Noodle Salad with Prawns and Mango

The popular cooking duo Mas van Putten and Carl Lemette, known as De Vrouw met De Baard, combined their Indonesian roots and their travel experiences through America and Europe and compiled the dishes inspired by them in a new cookbook; Asian Soul Food. The book is full of the most delicious recipes, such as this fresh noodle salad with prawns and mango.

Mas and Carl: “A little umami bomb served in a fresh and crunchy lettuce leaf. The combination of cinnamon and cumin with fish and oyster sauce, prawns and mango is not an obvious one, but it is very special. We serve it as a snack or alongside the noodle salad. This deliciously crunchy noodle salad first came about at an impromptu dinner with the neighbours. Two parking spaces, our long wooden kitchen table set up on them, ice-cold Viognier, sunshine and a large bowl of this noodle salad on the table. Prepare the dressing ahead of time. It keeps well. Just before serving, mix the dressing into the prawns, spoon into a lettuce leaf, add the mango and you’re done…”

How to make the prawns with mango

Chopping and preparation

• Peel and cut the shallots and spring onion into rings as thin as possible.
• Pick the leaves from the coriander sprigs and set them aside. Cut the lombok in half lengthwise, remove the membranes and seeds, and cut it into thin strips. Cut the mango flesh into cubes of approximately 0.5 x 0.5 cm.
• Put the fish sauce, oyster sauce, sugar, oil, cinnamon and cumin powder, chopped lombok, shallots and spring onion in a small bowl. Grate the ginger over the bowl and press the garlic clove into the bowl. Mix everything well.

Serving

• Remove approximately 8 leaves from the little gem and place them on a large flat plate or board. Mix the prawns into the sauce shortly before serving.
• Place a generous tablespoon of prawns on each leaf. Top with a teaspoon of mango and 2 coriander leaves. If you don’t like coriander, sprinkle over some parsley instead.

How to make the noodle salad

Chopping and preparation

• Cook the noodles until al dente, rinse under cold water, drain and pour the vegetable oil over them. This prevents the noodles from sticking together.
• Bring a pan of water to the boil and blanch the sugarsnaps and edamame beans for approximately 2 minutes, so that the sugarsnaps remain very crunchy. Rinse them under cold water, drain and set aside.
• Cut the lombok and spring onions into very fine rings, and peel and finely chop the red onion.
• Put the light soy sauce in a bowl, add the Chinese rice vinegar, sesame oil and sugar, and mix well. Grate the ginger over the bowl and mix the dressing again.
• Cut the lime into wedges. Pick the leaves from the coriander and parsley sprigs and roughly chop them.

Preparation

• Put the noodles in a deep salad bowl. Pour the dressing over the noodles and mix well. Sprinkle the edamame beans, sugarsnaps, chopped red onion and half of the spring onion and lombok rings, as well as half of the parsley, coriander and Chinese pepper, over the noodles and mix everything again. Season to taste with black pepper and salt.

Serving

• Mix everything well again before serving and distribute the remaining spring onion and lombok rings, parsley, coriander and Chinese pepper over the salad. Finally, squeeze some lime wedges over the salad.

Title: Asian Soul Food
Author: Carl Lemette and Mas van Putten
Price: €20
Publisher: Spectrum

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