A Vietnamese twist on a classic Italian snack I grew up with called pastere.

There is always something great about making that first dish in your new kitchen. Learning the new space, finding out things that are great and not so great about it. Realizing things that you forgot to move or get at the store and making quick changes to the dish based on that. I made these bacon coconut noodles as the first dish at the place I moved into a few days ago and I am absolutely loving it. The kitchen and the noodles.

I was craving a breaded chicken dish with pasta like chicken parm but I wanted it to be lighter. I was also craving Vietnamese bun vermicelli. I put the two cravings together to create this dish. I had been thinking of Vietnamese for a long time actually. The other day I finally was going to order some but I was having a lazy day and didn’t want to leave the house, so I found the only place that delivered. I had never been there and didn’t look at the reviews, but it turned out that it was more of a Chinese place that had some Vietnamese dishes on the menu. The bun vermicelli was almost embarrassingly bad and it made me crave the stuff even more! I’m not saying what I made here is super authentic or anything, but when I am craving it what I really need is the interplay of cucumber, mint, peanut, fish sauce, and rice noodles. The one that I ordered that day only had 3 out of 5 of these ingredients and for me that just doesn’t cut it!