Vietnamese Beef Salad

This Vietnamese-inspired salad is a quick and healthy weeknight dinner. It’s so simple that only the steak needs to be cooked. It’s packed with vegetables, low fat and gluten-free. You can mix and match the vegetables; sometimes I add beansprouts or some finely shredded cabbage for extra crunch.

I love Vietnamese food, and have learnt so much on every visit to that beautiful country with its incredible food markets, street food and increasingly restaurants. Recipes like this with larger amounts of grilled beef like this tend to be found more in restaurants than on the street.

Vietnamese Beef Salad

Ingredients

Serves 2

• 200g sirloin or fillet steak

• 50g rice noodles, vermicelli

• Half a cucumber, shredded

• A dozen snow peas

• A handful of coriander and mint leaves

• 50g unsalted peanuts, roasted

• Chili pepper, chopped

For the quick pickled carrots

• 1 carrot, shredded

• 2 tablespoons of rice or white vinegar

• 1 teaspoon of sugar

• 1 tablespoon of salt

For the sauce

• Half a chili

• A clove of garlic

• Juice of a lime

• 2 tablespoons of fish sauce

• 1 stalk of lemongrass, outside removed and chopped.

• 1 thumb of ginger

• 1 teaspoon of palm sugar or castor sugar

Method

• To make the quick pickled carrots. Place the shredded carrots in a bowl with the vinegar, sugar, and salt. Leave to sit.

• Take the steak out the fridge, sprinkle with salt and pound to tenderize

• Meanwhile, cover the rice noodles and the snow peas in boiling water and leave to soften.

• To make the sauce; combine the garlic, chili pepper, ginger, lemongrass, palm sugar, lime juice, and fish sauce in a food processor.

• Drain the noodles and snow peas, chop to preferred size, and transfer to a mixing bowl. Add the drained pickled carrots, herbs, chopped peanuts, and half the sauce. Toss and leave to sit.

• Sear the flattened steak for 1 minute on each side. Transfer to a board, slice thinly on the diagonal, and cover with the rest of the sauce. Leave to rest and absorb the sauce for 2-3 minutes.

• Serve the rice noodle salad topped with the sliced steak. Pour over the remaining sauce mixed with the meat juices and garnished with chopped chili.

Hello, World!