Cold Chicken & Noodle Salad

There are versions of noodle salad here and there in cook shows and recipe books or blog. The basic ingredients are quite similar. Noodle, protein, various fresh herbs and salad; for seasoning, of course its the soy sauce and sesame oil.

Perfect for a warm day or as a quick light meal or serve as side. You could prepare a day ahead, just make sure that you keep the cooked and fresh ingredients in separate containers and bring everything together just before serving. Here is my version and it changes depending on what I can gather from my fridge.

Ingredients:

Noodle:
1 - 1 1/2 portion thin rice noodle, alternately instant noodle or glass noodle could work.

Protein:
1/2 Chicken breasts, cooked;
4-8 cooked shrimp;

Fresh Ingredients:
1/2 to 1 Red Chilli (spicy or sweet)
1 stalk Spring Onion
Cook Shiitek mushroom or black ear fungus
6 - 8 Mint leaves
1 handful of Basil leaves
1 handful of coriander
few leaves of Iceberg salad
1/2 Onion
1/2 stalk Lemon grass

Seasoning:
2 - 3 Tbsp Olive oil
1/2 tsp Sesame Oil
2 Tbsp Lemon or Lime Juice
Soy Sauce
Chilli Oil (optional)

Preparation:

• Cook Thin Rice Noodle as per the packaging instruction;
• Shred, sliced or cut the cooked chicken breast into long strips. You could use left over boiled or roast chicken;
• Sliced the cooked shrimp into half or quarter;
• Thinly sliced the red Chili, mushroom/black wood fungus, onion, spring onion, lemon grass and iceberg salad;
• Cut mint and basil leaves into long strips;
• Coarsely chopped the coriander leaves;
• Place the noodle, protein, fresh ingredient in a large salad bowl and toss to mix. Season with soy sauce, lemon juice, chilli oil, sesame oil to taste.

It is more likely to find shiitek mushroom here in Athens than black ear fungus. I have manage to buy both dry and fresh shiitek mushroom from the Supermarket across Kiffisias ISAP station. If you are using fresh shiitek mushroom, I would suggest to cook it in boiling water with a few slice of ginger to rid off the moldy taste.