Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Spicy sea kelp noodle salad

sea kelp salad

A few weeks back, my friend Ami took me raw food shopping. One of the things she said she loved was sea kelp noodles. Although I had no idea what one does with sea kelp noodles, they were packaged much like Asian noodles, so they seemed less intimidating than some of the other products I saw that day.

Because it was hot out, and because I had recently had an amazing meal at Pok Pok, I was craving green papaya salad. Although I had no papaya, nor had I ever made that dish, I got the idea to wing it using the sea kelp as a base.

I threw this together with ingredients on hand and I used a cheat ingredient, Annie Chun's Thai Peanut Sauce. The resulting dish was great, perfectly suited what I was craving, and came together in minutes. One of these days I plan to try making my own homemade peanut sauce, as I'm sure that'll be even better.

Here's a rough recipe:
1 package sea kelp noodles
handful each of chopped basil, cilantro, and mint
1-2 grated carrots
handful of bean sprouts
peanut sauce
red pepper flakes
juice of 1 lime, plus additional for garnish
chopped peanut for garnish

note: for the version in the photo, I added a package of Mixed Sea Veggies, but that's not necessary or even necessarily recommended for this dish.

Rinse the sea kelp noodles and soak in cold water for 15 minutes. Drain and toss with other ingredients. Garnish with lime wedges, peanuts, and cilantro sprigs. Serve immediately. (You can eat it later, but the noodles lose their crunch). Delish (if I do say so myself)!

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