Cooking in the Noe: Vietnamese inspired noodles with beef, mint & cilantro

Thumbs up for easy Asian cooking! We were out at Lumiere Theater yesterday for "Jiro Dreams of Sushi" and had originally intended to grab a bite at the hole in the wall Vietnamese place next to Lumiere but the food took close to 40 mins so we grabbed it to go. What has that got to do with our dinner tonight? Well, we took home a sad looking box of vermicelli noodles with sadder looking beef pieces.

So for dinner tonight, I decided to reconstruct the noodles and beef to something way yummier: my version of Vietnamese inspired noodles with fresh mint leaves and cilantro! It's so easy! Start with stir-frying minced garlic and the white ends of green onion in oil and sesame oil. Then toss in the mint leaves and cilantro (if you want your noodles to taste more salad-like, hold the cilantro till the end), then the noodles, toss in a sauce mixture of fish sauce, sugar and more sesame oil. I also added fresh cut chili for some spice and cucumber strips for crunch. But the cucumber can also be substituted with lettuce or carrot strips (remember to cook the carrots for longer!). I also cut the beef pieces into strips and then gave everything a toss in the pan, pop into a bowl, garnish with more spring onion and voila: Audrey's Vietnamese inspired noodles with beef, fresh mint and cilantro!