How to make Thai Glass Noodle Salad YUM WOON SEN ยำวุ้นเส้น

You guys welcome back. It's spring here where I'm from and summer is fast approaching. The days are getting longer and definitely warmer. For me that means something refreshing and flavorful to snack on. I'll be making a vibrant glass noodle salad that's quite popular in Thai restaurants all around the country called Yam Mun Sen. The glass noodles are tossed in with mixture of fun, textural, and flavorful components in a refreshing citrus dressing. Let's get started. Flavors and smells are just like hearing a familiar song. They have a special ability to transport us to a certain time or place in our lives. And for some reason, the flavors of this salad remind me of growing up in my childhood home. Not because the salad was made often but maybe because the combination of ingredients used in here are a reflection of many of the flavors I ate growing up. This is Chinese celery. It has a stronger flavor than a regular celery and it's more peppery too. If you can't find this, young tender celery hearts will work just fine. If there's one thing that I'd say Southeast Asians eat a lot of, it's salads. Meat salads, noodle salads, veggie salads, cooked and raw, you name it. And always aromatic and robust. For a tomato variety, choose one that doesn't contain much juice because you don't want so much tomato juice that it dilutes the flavor of the dressing that we'll make. You can always remove the seeds though. This one looks right for me. And for some chilies, I'm using Thai chilies. A mixture of red and green will add more color to the salad. The amount that you add is up to you. And we'll need some lime juice. This lime squeezer is amazing. My cousin had an extra one and let me have this. It's made lime juicing a breeze and it's quite fun. Let's make the dressing for this salad. In goes garlic, sugar, cilantro stems. They add so much flavor. This salad leads in sour and savory and the sugar is really there just to balance everything out. Not to make this salad sweet. Fish sauce and lime juice. In goes our chopped chilies which will infuse its spice into the dressing. For fun textures and extra umami flavors, there's dried small shrimp that I soaked for two minutes in hot water and then drained. And peanuts that I've roasted. I'll be using them soon. To prepare the glass noodles, we'll allow them to soak in room temperature water for about 10 minutes or so until they become pliable. I'll cook them soon. For protein, there's shrimp and squid that's been pre-sliced nicely like this. Squid is optional but the shrimp is iconic to this dish. I'll cook the seafood first which doesn't take long at all. Let's save some of this water because we'll be using it to cook the ground pork and the glass noodles. And for additional protein, this dish traditionally uses ground pork but feel free to substitute it with ground chicken which will work too. Or you can leave it out. In goes the water we cooked the seafood in. It's going to add extra flavor. And a splash of fish sauce to season. Let's add in the pliable glass noodles that have been soaking in water. As they cook, it's gonna absorb a lot of this flavorful liquid. You want the cooked glass noodles to be slightly al dente because glass noodles, once overcooked, it breaks apart very easily. In a bowl, let's assemble the salad. In goes the glass noodles and pork, the dressing, shallots, tomatoes, and Chinese celery, dried shrimp, the other shrimp, and squid. One thing to note is that it's best to prepare the salad right before you plan to eat it because the glass noodles act like sponges and will continue absorbing all of the dressing to the point that they will expand and get too soft and mushy. Cilantro and roasted peanuts. The dressing has so much flavor and will nicely coat all of these components here. It's almost summer time and this will be a great meal to make for your loved ones. Here we have it. Yam Wonsen. Glass noodle salad. Remember to eat this salad as soon as you prepare it for the best experience. It's full of textures and flavors. I hope you enjoyed this video. Please give it a like and leave me a comment below. I'll see you all in the next video. Be safe everyone.