Vietnamese-Style Beef Salad with Rice Noodles

Ingredients

• 500 g beef sirloin or rump steak
• 100 g bean sprouts
• 200 g vermicelli rice noodles
• 1 tbsp rice vinegar
• 1 cucumber, cut into ribbons or matchsticks
• 2 tbsp roasted peanuts, roughly crushed
• 1 long red chilli, thinly sliced
• 3 spring onions, green tops only, thinly sliced
• 3 tbsp fish sauce
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 30g fresh mint, leaves picked
• 30g fresh coriander
• 2 limes, juiced
• prawn crackers, to serve
• nuoc cham dipping sauce, to serve

Method

1. Soak the vermicelli in a bowl of boiling water for 3–4 minutes, or per packet instructions, until the strands are just tender with no chalky core. Drain, rinse hard under cold water until completely cool, then shake dry — this stops the cooking and keeps the noodles loose rather than gluing into a single clump.
2. Whisk the fish sauce, lime juice, sugar and rice vinegar in a small bowl until the sugar has fully dissolved. Taste it: it should land sharp, salty and sweet all at once. The fish sauce carries most of the salt here, so taste before you reach for any extra — if the lime is dominating, a pinch more sugar will balance it.
3. Pat the steak dry with kitchen paper — water means steam, and steam means no crust. Rub it with the vegetable oil and season generously with salt and pepper on both sides before it goes anywhere near the pan.
4. Heat a heavy stainless or cast-iron pan over very high heat until it's smoking hard. Lay the steak in away from you and don't crowd the pan — if your steak is wider than the pan, cut it in two and sear in batches. A crowded pan drops the heat, the meat sweats, and you'll grey the outside instead of building a crust.
5. Sear for 2–3 minutes per side for medium-rare — you want a deep mahogany crust and a little give when you press the centre. Rest on a board for a full 5 minutes; the juices need to settle or they'll run out the moment you slice. Then slice thinly against the grain.
6. Divide the drained noodles between four bowls. Top with cucumber, bean sprouts, sliced beef, chilli and spring onion tops, arranging everything in loose piles so each element stays distinct rather than tossed into one heap.
7. Scatter over the mint and coriander, then spoon the dressing generously over each bowl — work it down through the noodles with your fingers or tongs so every strand picks up the lime juice and fish sauce. Taste a strand: it should be punchy. Adjust now with a final pinch of salt or extra squeeze of lime if it needs it.
8. Finish with the crushed peanuts for crunch, tuck the prawn crackers alongside each bowl, and serve the nuoc cham in a small dish for dipping and extra drizzling at the table.