Vietnamese beef and noodle salad

The warmer weather is perfectly suited to eating Vietnamese and Thai salads – tangy, fiery and pungent, and packed with fresh herbs. I love the contrast of soft and crunchy; slippery rice noodles with crisp cucumber, firm peanuts and chips of chilli.

Method

Marinate the beef in the hoi sin for 2 hours. Soak the noodles in hot water until soft. Drain, rinse in cold water and cut into manageable lengths (about 10cm). Combine the herbs, cucumber, chilli and noodles in a bowl. Combine the dressing ingredients and adjust to taste. It should taste sweet, salty and tangy all at once.

Grill the beef to medium rare and allow to rest for 5 minutes. Slice thinly and add to the salad. Toss everything together and serve on plates sprinkled with the roasted peanuts and fried shallots.

For the salad

• 350g porterhouse or fillet of beef
• 4 tbsp hoi sin sauce
• 200g mung-bean thread (also called glass) noodles
• 1 cup each of mint, Thai basil and coriander leaves
• 1 Lebanese cucumber, thinly sliced
• 2 long red chillies, deseeded and finely sliced
• 4 tbsp crushed roasted peanuts
• 2 tbsp fried shallots

For the dressing

• 3-4 tbsp grated palm sugar
• juice of 2 limes
• 3 tbsp fish sauce
• 1 stick of lemon grass, white part, finely sliced