This colourful and tasty salad can be prepared the day before, just add the lime juice at the last minute to avoid the leaves to ‘cook’. You can either cook the beef the day before or at the last minute if you prefer it warm. Don’t hesitate to put a lot of mint if you like as it creates the perfect balance between the hot chilies and limes’ acidity.

Serves 4

– 2 x 225g thick sirloin steacks

– Salt and fresh ground black pepper

– Vegetable oil, olive oil

– 1 Lemongrass stalk

– 3 large ripe limes

– 1 red onion, finely diced

– A half of cucumber, peeled and shredded

– 2 Tbsp fish sauce

– 2 red chillies, seeded and finely sliced

– 15 large mint leaves, sliced

– 2 spring onions, finely sliced

– 1 large bag of mixed salad leaves

– 1 bunch of coriander roughly chopped

Method

Smash lemongrass with the flat of a knife and remove the woody outer layers until you are left with the finer white part only, slice it very finely and reserve.

Squeeze the limes.

Heat olive oil in a pan and fry lemongrass with red onion for 3 minutes. Season the steaks with salt and pepper and rub with vegetable oil. Fry them until medium rare (3 min on each side over high heat) and set aside for 10 min.

Transfer to a large bowl the salad leaves, add onion and lemongrass, mint leaves, cucumber, spring onions, lime juice, fish sauce, chillies. Check the seasoning. Slice the beef thinly on a diagonal and set it on the top of the leaves and add the coriander leaves at the last minute.