Oh, I love this dish. The cold noodles, the crisp vegetables, the sweet chicken, the heat of the dressing. Asian watermelon radish has a stunning pink interior and a great texture but it's fine to use multicoloured or regular radishes instead.

Prep time: 20 minutes, plus 4 hours chilling time | Cooking time: 20 minutes

SERVES

Four

INGREDIENTS

For the salad

8 skinless boneless chicken thighs
1 lemon-grass stalk
150ml soy sauce
50ml rice wine
40g root ginger, peeled and grated
6 garlic cloves, grated or crushed
4½ tbsp palm sugar or soft light-brown sugar
1 bunch of coriander
Juice of 2 limes
150g rice vermicelli
175g watermelon radish, or regular radishes
150g ridge cucumber, or regular cucumber
2 tbsp groundnut oil
Leaves from a small bunch of mint, torn

For the dressing

About 2 tbsp uncooked rice
1 red chilli, halved, deseeded and chopped
2 tbsp palm sugar or soft light-brown sugar
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 tsp grated root ginger
50ml fish sauce
Juice of 1 lime

METHOD

Remove the coarse outer layers from the lemon grass and trim the top and base. Finely chop the rest.
Mix together the soy sauce, rice wine, ginger, garlic, sugar, finely chopped coriander stalks, half the lime juice and the lemon grass.
Put the chicken in a dish and pour over the marinade, turning to coat. Cover with cling film and chill for about four hours. Bring it to room temperature before cooking.
For the dressing, put the rice into a hot frying-pan and cook for two or three minutes, shaking regularly, until pale golden brown. Transfer to a large mortar or spice grinder. Set aside to cool, then pulverise.
Crush the chilli, sugar and garlic in a mortar until almost a paste. Pound in the ginger then gradually add the fish sauce and lime juice. Stir in one tablespoon of the toasted rice.
Put the vermicelli into just-boiled water and leave for four minutes then drain really well. Run cold water through them and leave to drain and cool.
If using watermelon radish, remove the skin with a peeler then use a small sharp knife to shave off strips of the radish in furls, like pink pencil shavings. Or just finely slice regular radishes and the cucumber. Toss the cold noodles with the cucumber, radish, the rest of the lime juice, the oil and most of the mint.
Shaking the excess marinade off the chicken, cook each piece on a hot griddle pan on both sides, starting on a medium-high heat to get a good colour, then reducing the heat to cook the chicken through.
Put the chicken on top of the salad and scatter with the rest of the mint. Spoon on a little dressing and offer the rest in a bowl.