Here’s one for the heatwave. I made this last night as it was absolutely swealtering outside and I was getting cold fresh food cravings. We’re really lucky to have an amazing local Vietnamese restaurant just round the corner (my sister spent some time working in Ho Chi Minh and reckons it’s the most authentic she’s eaten in the UK). Anyway, this is my attempt (bastardisation?) of one of their amazing cold noodle dishes. Unfortunately this one probably wont work so well as a vegetarian dish as the fish sauce pretty much makes the dish. It’s fresh, fragrant, sooooo easy and absolutely divine. this takes no cooking apart from the meat and could easily be prepped in advance and kept in a fridge (though you probably want to eat it relatively quickly to maintain freshness). You can use any meat, or veggie alternative such as tofu, instead of the tuna – I just happened to pick up a couple of steaks for £2. If you’re feeling super summery you could even cook the tuna steak on a BBQ!

Ingredients:
For the Sauce:
1 heaped tablespoon white sugar
1 lime
Generous glug on fish sauce (sorry I’m so bad at measurements)
1 clove garlic
For the salad:
2 handfuls of beansprouts
1 red pepper
white cabbage (i used about 1/3)
1 carrot
2 nests of vermicelli rice noodles
2 tuna steaks (or anything really, beef, chicken breast, tofu… whatever you have knocking about)
Mint leaves – small bunch
Coriander – generous bunch
Spring onions
Red chilli

Method
1. Use a potato peeler to create slivers of the cabbage and carrot, add to plates with sliced pepper and beansprouts.

2. Finely chop the mint, coriander, spring onions and chilli. Add about 2/3 to the plates and stir everything together. Keep a bit to she side for sprinkling at the end.

3 Add noodles to boiling water. Take then out after a couple of minutes (about a minute less than instructions suggest). Drain and pour cold water over them to cool quickly. split in half and add to plates
4. Grate the garlic into a cup, add the fish sauce, sugar and lime juice. stir well. Now add about an equal measure of water to start. You may need to fiddle around with the measurements, adding more water, keep tasting until you get it right. As you can see from the pic here I add quite a lot more water to my sauce u til it’s right.

5. In a hot pan sear the tuna on both sides for a couple of minutes, I used a dash of sesame oil but this isn’t necessary. Let rest for a couple of mins then cut into slices.
5. Place on top of salad, drizzle sauce all over (lots of it!), serve with a lovely cold glass of white wine!