As ever there are a thousand recipes for this and I adapted one from Glynn Purnell on Saturday Kitchen Best Bytes, the main changes are that I don’t use vinegar in the dressing and I use fresh ginger in the noodles instead of dried. The only thing better than dried ginger (any ginger biscuit is a winner), is fresh ginger, so I adapted it to use that. I also just make a fresh dressing without heating it at the start, but this is mainly because I’m not using the vinegar.
There are three bits to this: prawn noodles, a marinated steak, and a lovely dressing.
Anyway, I’ve learnt enough about “authenticity” in the last 3 decades of taking a real interest in food that I know it’s bogus: There are as many recipes as there are cooks in any culture.
Make the marinade and put it on the steak about 8 hours before you want to eat. You could do it overnight, but you risk going into curing rather than marinating because of the soy and fish sauce being quite salty. I also crush the garlic with a bit of salt which adds to it. But it won’t be a disaster either way.
The dressing is very like nuoc cham from Vietnam (hardly surprising – countries are made up, but people, land and what grows in it are real). Make this any time – it just keeps getting better. And the noodles are lovely and quite simple because the dressing lifts them to a different level.
Finally, most recipes call for egg noodles, but I had rice vermicelli so I used that. I’ll get egg noodles next time. Either way just cook them or soak them or whatever it says on the packet. They’ll only be cooked for a few minutes so make sure they’re ready to go.
Method
Marinate the steak first. Mix the marinade ingredients together and make sure the sugar is dissolved and then put it in a little bag with the steak. Leave for 6-8 hours.
Make the dressing as soon as you like. The longer the chilli is soaking in there the better.
Oil a pan for the steak. If this is a normal frying pan, just drop a bit of oil in and swirl it round. If it’s a ridged griddle pan then oil it with a small amount of oil and some kitchen roll so the high bits are oiled.ake the steak out of the marinade and dry it with kitchen towel.
Heat the pan until it’s really hot then put the steak on – 2 minutes each side or however you like your steak. Rest the steak on a plate with a little foil over the top to stop it cooling too much.
Boil the kettle or do whatever you need to do to make the noodles ready for the pan (read the packet).
Heat the oils for the noodles in a pan and add the chilli, the ginger and the prawns. Cook for 3 or 4 minutes and add the noodles.
Cook for 2 minutes and add the soy sauce and cook for 2 minutes more.
Carve the steak and put a pile of noodles on a plate, put the steak on top or artfully next to the noodles, and dress it all with the lovely dressing.
That’s it!