Out and About with Cold Smoked Trout (Salad)

In a delicious cold noodle vehicle so easy you could make it in your sleep. 😴

WHEN I DIE, I PLAN TO LEAVE whatever remains of my vast fortune (right now, that’s a little over $100) to see that a state-of-the art noodle-history museum is erected, with a Department of Salad wing focussing on cold noodle salads.

If I haven’t made myself clear by talking about it all the time: The world needs to give greater respect to the cold noodle salad. I become stunned afresh every time I think about the fact that in the United States there’s no cold-noodle-salad-dedicated fine-dining establishment or fast-food chain. I’d eat there all the time. Meanwhile, I’ll keep making and eating them at home.

They’re always on my mind. For instance, while I was all wrapped up in converting my favorite Vietnamese summer roll into a salad for the last issue, my brain kept wandering down a lane that ended at a splendid glass noodle salad using the same ingredients. (Honestly, all you’d have to do is switch out the lettuce for noodles.)

And even now, as I’m getting ready to take a short trip, I’m making a noodle salad. What’s remarkable about this fact is that most of the time before I leave my kitchen for more than a few days, I perform a ritual whose main goal is to avoid wasting any of my precious produce. I chop up the contents of my crisper along with any edible flotsam and jetsam I need to get rid of (cheese nubs, the bottom of a bag of nuts, old typewriter ribbons) and dress it all with mustard vinaigrette. I call these my food-rescue salads.

And they’re usually quite delicious. But this time I’m packing up my crisper drawer in a cooler and taking it with me to use when I reach my destination, now that my friends and family are used to me arriving at their homes as if I were the Mr. Haney of salads, with my wagon of wares.