Quang noodles

Serves: 4
Preparation time: 20 mins
Cooking time: 60 mins

Ingredients:
1 liter broth
300g (10oz) pork ham, cut into thin slices
200g (7oz) Vietnamese Sausage (or Hue Sausaga), cut into thin slices
300g (10oz) small fresh shrimps, deveind
1kg (2.2lbs) fresh Quang noodle (or 500g of dried flat rice noodles)
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon annatto seeds (or annatto powder)
3 teaspoons stock granules
2 teaspoons fish sauce

1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
½ teaspoon ground pepper
1 cup cooking oil
2 sesame rice paper wrappers
60g (2oz) roasted peanuts, pestled
4 cloves garlic, bruised
200g (7oz) mint leaves and lettuce, well-washed, thinly sliced
1 cup bean sprouts
1 tablespoon minced saw-leaf herbs
100g (3 ½ oz) shredded bananaflower, soaked in water with a teaspoon of lime juice
5 shallots, thinly sliced
1 lime, quartered
10 small green chilies
Recipe:
Heat a tablespoon of cooking oil in a skillet. Add annatto seeds and stir-fry over low heat to lose their color. Discard the seeds. Set annatto oil aside in a bowl.

Add 2 tablespoons of cooking oil, shallots and garlic to the skillet and fry. Add pork, stir-fry for about 3 minutes. Season with 2 teaspoons of stock granules, a teaspoon of fish sauce, a teaspoon of sugar, a pinch of turmeric powder. Add shrimps to stir-fry togather. Add ½ cup of broth to the skillet. Simmer for about 20 minutes. Mix well and season again to have a pleasant taste. Add annatto oil and ½ teaspoon of pepper.

Heat a pot with broth. Bring to a boil, season again and keep it hot on the cooker.

Scald Quang noodles in boiling water. If using dried flat rice noodles, soak in hot water for 5 minutes, then scald in boiling water for 2-3 minutes until just soft. Take out and drain noodles, mix with a tablespoon of cooking oil to prevent the noodles from sticking together.

Grill sesame rice paper wrappers until yellow.

Add noodles (of flat rice noodles) to a bowl. Arrange sausages, pork, shrimps over. Sprinkle with a little sauce from the skillet with shrimps. Then, add hot broth to wet noodles. Sprinkle with roasted peanuts and saw-leaf herbs on top.

Serve with grilled rice paper wrappers, a dish of mixed vegetables, lime and small green chilies.

Notice: Quang noodles is eaten in a dryness style, which means noodles is only wetted with broth and do not pour too much broth like pho or hutieu. To have a good taste, Quang noodles must be eaten with a lot of vegetables. You can add crab meat, chicken breast meat, fish ballds, chicken eggs or thinly sliced squids to have a more attactive and plentiful bowl of Quang noodles.