Southampton Noodle Bowl

A few years back we took staff to an Olive Oil Evaluation Course in California at the UC Davis Olive Oil Center.
We were staying in San Francisco and visited the Haight-Ashbury area (like any good ‘hippy wannabee’ would!) and had a Vietnamese Noodle Bowl from a little restaurant there.
I can STILL taste it!!!
I spent many a night trying to ‘reverse engineer’ it once we returned home but I could never quite hit all the notes, hence the name is Southampton, not Vietnamese Noodle Bowl.
But it is pretty close!

(makes 4 meal-size bowls, or for 2 bowls, use half the veggies, shrimp & noodles- but make the same amount of dressing, cuz it’s DELICIOUS!))

Ingredients

2 Tbsp Lemongrass Mint White Balsamic Vinegar
1 Tbsp fish sauce
1 tsp white sugar
3 Tbsp Cilantro & Roasted Onion Olive Oil
2 Tbsp lime juice (1/2 a lime)
1 Tbsp Sweet Thai chili sauce
1 clove garlic, mashed & minced
1 Tbsp Sinai Gourmet Jalapeno Hot Sauce OR 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
350 gm cooked & peeled baby *shrimp
250 gm rice vermicelli noodles
1/2 cup of hot chicken or vegetable broth
1 Cup finely chopped lettuce, spinach or a mix
1 Cup chopped cilantro
1 Cup bean sprouts or pea sprouts
1 Cup mushrooms, sliced
1/2 an English cucumber, cut into 3-inch matchsticks
24 snow peas, 6 for each bowl
1/2 sweet red pepper, cut into 3-inch matchsticks
4 green onions thinly sliced
1/2 cup crushed peanuts

Directions

Whisk together 2 Tbsp Cilantro & Roasted Onion Olive Oil, fish sauce, sugar, 2 Tbsp Lemongrass Mint White Balsamic Vinegar, lime juice, garlic, and hot sauce (or red pepper flakes) in a bowl. Set the dressing aside.
Pour enough boiling water over the noodles to cover and let sit 10 minutes, drain noodles well.
Put the remaining Cilantro & Roasted Onion Olive Oil in a frying pan over med-high, saute noodles quickly then pour hot broth over and stir to coat, reduce liquids by half. Remove noodles from liquid and add shrimp to gently warm (you can turn off the burner).
Assemble the bowls by placing the cooked noodles in one half of each BIG serving bowl and the lettuce, cilantro and sprouts in the other half. Top each bowl with mushrooms, snow peas, cucumber & red pepper sticks. Top with shrimp, peanuts and green onions. Pour the remaining pan sauce (if there is any) into reserved salad dressing, whisk again and pour over bowls equally.

*Feel free to substitute for the shrimp with an equal amount of cooked & sliced chicken or pork or cubes of tofu or tempeh.