Asian Inspired Pasta Salad

Craving for something light and Asian? This is a perfect dish to whip up when you have only 10 mins to cook. It serves perfectly as a wonderful crowd entertaining starter. My inspiration came from sesame oil. I love the aroma of sesame oil and I wanted to create a dish that will showcase the subtle heartwarming flavor of sesame oil without having to cook it. Sesame oil is great for new mothers in confinement too.

Ingredients (serves 2):

1. 1 cup cooked fusilli

2. 1 cup diced cucumber, seeded

3. 2 tomatoes on the vine, seeded and diced

4. 1/4 cup cashew nuts, dry roasted and coarsely chopped

Ingredients for dressing (enough dressing to make 4 servings):

1. 2 tablespoons water

2. 3 tablespoons soy sauce

3. 3 tablespoons sesame oil

4. 1 teaspoon chili flakes

5. Pinch of pepper

6. Pinch of salt

7. Pinch of onion powder

Method:

1. Bring a pot of water to boil. Add salt into the water and cook fusilli in there for about 5 to 8 minutes until al dente.

2. In the mean time, prepare the vegetables.

3. For the cucumber, cut of both ends of the cucumber and rub the cap against the top to extract any bitterness from the vegetable. Do it for both ends of the cucumber. Cut the cucumber into half, lengthwise and remove the inner seeds with a spoon. Cut into strips and dice into smaller bite-size pieces.

4. For the tomatoes, cut the tomato into quarters and remove the seeds. Cut the shell of the tomato into strips and dice into smaller bite-size pieces.

5. Place diced cucumbers and tomatoes into a bowl and toss.

6. Next prepare the dressing.

7. Mix all dressing ingredients in a bowl and stir well to combine.

8. Add about 2 tablespoons of the dressing into the bowl with cucumber and tomatoes and toss well to coat.

9. Once pasta is ready, add them onto the cucumber and tomatoes. Add another 4 to 5 tablespoons of the dressing and toss well to combine. Add more dressing if desired.

10. Add chopped cashew nuts just right before serving and toss.

11. Ready to serve at slightly warm, at room temperature or cold.

Note:Feel free to keep any remaining dressing in the fridge. You can use it to dress up any salad or noodles.

Feel free to switch up the cucumber with zucchini.

Feel free to switch up the fusilli with other pasta shapes.

Dry roast the cashew nuts the same way as you would other nuts in the other cake recipes.

Nutritional value of this recipe

This recipe makes about 2 servings. The calories count per serving is about 600 while providing 17g of protein, 31%* of daily required Vitamin C and iron and 23% of daily required Vitamin A.

* based on a 2,000 calories per day diet