EBI SUNOMONO ~ Our way

Tangy, refreshing, Japanese salad, adorned with skinny cucumber slices and tasty, fresh shrimp. Flavour-popping slurpy goodness, in a bowl. With chopsticks.

We love our Sunomono.  It fires our jets.  It's always sooooo refreshing.  And tangy, with that wee hit of sweetness. Yum!

We love it all dressed up with fresh, hand-peeled B.C. shrimp (ebi), and 'wafer thin' mini cuke slices,  topped off with a good schwack of wasabi sesame seeds, and splashes of soy sauce. Yessirreebob, that's the way we like it.

But wait, sometimes I just quickly throw it together with the bean threads, cuke slices and that heady dressing.  A quick fix, please.  

And then sometimes, when I'm doing Sunomono for a family or friend dinner party, I big batch it by laying the cooked bean threads out on a hefty platter (with sides that curve up a bit to hold in all the juicy dressing) toss on lots of cucumber slices and shrimp, pour the dressing evenly over the top, and voila.  With small bowls and chopsticks in hand, everyone eagerly helps themselves.  Apparently our whole 'crowd' is Sunomono lovey dovey.

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EBI SUNOMONO ~ Our way ~ Serves 4-5

I almost always have a jar of Sunomono dressing in the fridge, just 'cuz I can.

DRESSING
Add into mason jar, or similar container:
1 1/2 cups rice vinegar
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons soy sauce (I used dark soy sauce)

Put the lid on and shake, shake, shake, the bedickens out of the mixture, to dissolve the sugar.  Refrigerate. Keeps well in the fridge, up to 2 weeks.

SALAD
About 100 grams dried bean thread vermicelli
1 cup thinly sliced English cucumber, or those mini cucumbers (I use the single blade on my box grater)
100 grams (about 1 cup) fresh shrimp
Garnish - sesame seeds, soy sauce

Cook bean threads in boiling salted water, for 2-5 minutes, until just barely al dente.  Quickly rinse with cold water.  Can be used right away, or covered and kept in the fridge for up to 4 hours.

To assemble, plop about 1/4 of the cooked bean threads into each of 4 bowls.  Continue with 1/4 of the cucumber slices, and shrimp, also into each of 4 bowls.  Pour enough dressing over all, so that the bean threads are happily soaking in that tangy deliciousness. You can prepare the bowls a few minutes ahead of time, and set in fridge so bask a bit, but also yummy and a-ok to serve up right away. Sprinkle with sesame seeds, drizzle with shoyu, grab those chop sticks and dig in.  Slurp, slurp.  Oishii!!