Prawn and Rice Noodle Salad

This recipe is from Rick Stein's Far Eastern Odyssey and is another example of an Asian hot, sweet, spicy and sour dish. This particular dish was made by Chef Wan in Malaysia.
The dried rice vermicelli noodles are softened in boiling water and left to drain well. You make a spice paste by blending together medium-hot red chillies and bird's eye chillies (which are the small, super hot ones), garlic, dried shrimp (which smell terrible! and need to be softened in boiling water first), tomatoes and palm sugar. It is a little unusual for a recipe from this area of Asia to contain so much fresh tomato.
To assemble the salad you combine the noodles and spice paste then add in cooked prawns, sliced shallots (the french shallots), fresh coriander leaves, chives and mint leaves, crispy fried shallots (which you can make or buy already fried), crushed roasted peanuts, shredded kaffir lime leaves, lime juice and fish sauce.
The end result is a tasty, fresh salad. I personally found it a little too "fishy" due to the dried shrimp but others may like that flavour.
Rating 6-7 out of 10.