The best way to eat a Masumoto nectarine
The short answer is over the sink! The right answer, of course, is however you like. For me, the answer came from farmer Nikiko three years ago. We’re always curious about how farmers enjoy their own fruit. The answers often surprise me. (There are far more avid preservers among the time-strapped small farmers we source from than I would've ever imagined.)
A couple years back, Joyce asked Nikiko what she had been making with their fruit. She told us that the Rose Diamonds really sing in a glass noodle salad. A glass noodle salad! The Rose Diamond is the first nectarine of Masumoto’s season and perhaps my favorite piece of fruit. (Ever!) It’s electric, vibrating with sweetness and acidity. And its arrival is momentous, the start of stone fruit for us.
A glass noodle salad?! Rose Diamonds sliced thin and rubbing shoulders with chewy noodles, fish sauce, lime juice, fresh herbs, and shrimp, she said, you just have to try it! So we did, and this dish – or a version of it – became an instant classic in our house.
I’ve become fascinated with the idea of creative process as a game of telephone. Nikiko shared a germ of an idea, not a recipe but a ringing endorsement and a partial list of ingredients. We adapted it to our pantry and filled in whatever blanks with imagination and intuition and some guesswork. I can’t say how much it resembled the original, but it blew us away! The dish, like the Rose Diamond itself, achieves balance through tension. Pungent fish sauce, puckery lime, bright herbs, and stone fruit sweetness pull in different directions at the same time, like a skin stretched over a drum, to create harmony.
Each season since we have made this dish and it’s evolved a little each time. It’s become a marker of the seasonal transition, in fruit-world and in life. (As March rolls around and citrus fatigue has set in, I begin to think glass noodles are coming.) I made it again this week with a different nectarine, the Spring Bright, and a different noodle. This nectarine is dense and richly sweet, with acid in the back seat. I may have added more lime to compensate – I'm not sure, it’s a little fuzzy now – but I can say that it was SO satisfying. Here’s a snapshot of that version.
Adapt liberally (and cite Nikiko Masumoto as the creator!)
Nectarine Glass Noodle Salad
Serves 2
Ingredients
2 servings of glass noodles1
¾ pound medium shrimp
A handful of peanuts
1 yellow nectarine
A generous handful of 2 or 3 different herbs, such as cilantro, mint, thai basil, etc.
1 jalapeño
1 medium shallot
3 limes
2 tbsp fish sauce
1-2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp water
A pinch of ground chiles
Preparation
- Cook or rehydrate the noodles according to their instructions. Set aside.
- Bring two quarts of salted water to a boil. Prepare an ice bath by adding a handful of ice cubes and a quart of salted water to a bowl. If you happen to have it on hand, or if you’re trying to impress your crush, add a cup of white wine to the pot. Back at the stove, add the shrimp to the pot, reduce the heat to medium, and poach at a simmer for 3-5 minutes until the shrimp are cooked through. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the shrimp to the ice bath. Add a couple glugs of white wine to the ice bath, it can’t hurt. (Plus I think they like you back.) Let the shrimp chill out for 5 minutes.
- If this is a date (is this a date?) put your plates in the fridge to chill.
- Toast the peanuts in a toaster oven set to 325*F. If they are roasted peanuts, just a couple minutes will bring them back to life. If they are raw peanuts, give them a few minutes more, but tread lightly – peanuts carry over quite a bit. Set aside to cool, then roughly chop.
- Remove the cheeks from the nectarine, then the end bits. Slice thinly, about ⅛ inch thick, and set aside. Roughly chop the herbs and set aside. Slice the jalapeño length-wise, then cross-wise thinly into half moons, and set aside.
- Peel and slice the shallot. Put it into a large mixing bowl.
- Halve the limes and squeeze 3 of them over the shallots. Does that look like 3 tablespoons of lime juice? Great! Add the fish sauce plus a tablespoon of sugar and water each. Give it a quick whisk to dissolve the sugar. Taste it – it should be bracing. If it’s really salty, add another squeeze of lime or a little water. Add a pinch of ground chile.
- Peel the shrimp and slice in half on the bias. Add to the bowl, and toss the shrimp to coat.
- Add the noodles, the herbs, the jalapeño, the nectarine, and half of the peanuts to the bowl. Toss well to combine. Set aside for 5 minutes to allow everyone to get acquainted.
- Remove your plates from the fridge. Heap a pile of noodles on each plate. The goodies tend to be left behind, so circle back and top each serving with some of those, too. Garnish with the rest of the peanuts. Enjoy!
