The Orange Kitchen

Vietnamese Mango Summer Salad.

Since first visiting Vietnam back in 2014, I've found myself falling more and more in love with Vietnamese cuisine. I've always been partial to Asian-inspired food, though as the years have gone on I've found myself drawn more towards fresh herbs, vegetable-based dishes, light yet intense flavours and rice noodles. Vietnamese cuisine is strongly based around all these things, and for that reason it has very quickly become my favourite.

In other news, as the seasons change in Australia and we roll around into yet another long, hot summer, I'm finding myself (yet again) deeply in love with mango. In Australia we're exceptionally blessed to have a good supply of locally grown, sweet, fresh mangoes all summer long and oh my do I like to make good use of that fact! I very much enjoy a juicy fresh mango on its own, but mango is also surprisingly adaptable to being added to lots of other dishes. I thought I'd experiment a little and combine my love of Vietnamese cuisine and mangoes, and this Vietnamese Mango Summer Salad was the result.

It's an incredibly light, fresh, wholesome and deliciously tasty salad and one that is definitely going to be on repeat in my kitchen this summer!

Ingredients; 
125gm vermicelli rice noodles, cooked as per packet instructions
1/4 head wombok/Chinese cabbage (approx. 4 cups), roughly chopped
2 large handfuls bean shoots
1 cucumber, sliced thinly
3 shallots/spring onions, chopped
Handful Vietnamese basil
Handful fresh coriander
Handful fresh mint
Flesh from 1 mango*
Marinated tofu (optional, amount variable)

Dressing
Zest and juice of 1 lime
4 tbsp tamari/soy sauce
2 tbsp sesame seed oil
Pinch sesame seeds
Pinch dried chilli flakes

1. Cook the tofu in a pan as you would usually/as per packet instructions.
2. In a large bowl, toss the roughly chopped wombok, cucumber slices, bean shoots, shallots and the herbs (Vietnamese basil, coriander and mint) in a large bowl. (Depending on the size of the herb leaves, I might roughly tear them into smaller pieces before tossing!).
3. Add in the cooked vermicelli noodles, sliced mango and cooked tofu, then toss through again.
4. In a small bowl, combine the dressing ingredients. Mix them together well then add onto the bowl of salad. Again, toss everything thoroughly then serve! Enjoy!

*to get the flesh from my mango, I cut the 'cheeks' of the mango away from the seed, then use a large spoon to scoop the flesh out of the cheeks in one piece. I then slice the flesh into strips and save the seed part to be eaten later!