As outdoorspeople we pride ourselves on being adventurous. While ‘normal’ people are watching the football or visiting the mall, we’re scaling mountains, descending rivers and gritting our teeth into the wildest storms. But for some reason that adventurous nature gets very quickly stowed at meal times – in some huts the most exotic thing you’ll see on a dinner plate is macaroni and cheese. If you agree it’s time to get spice things up a bit and bring the adventure to the dinner table, then next time you’re in the backcountry try this Vietnamese soup.

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Serves: Two

Weight: 0.95g

Volume:  1.5L

Kilojoules: 4095

Cost: $14.20

Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

200g  flat rice stick noodles

3tbsp sunflower oil

3 finely chopped spring onions (or you can use dried shallots)

Ginger – 2cm piece thinly sliced

1 chilli, small, finely chopped (or you can use dried chilli)

1 cube beef stock

100g bean sprouts

1 handful coriander, basil and mint leaves

400g sirloin steak

¼ tsp salt

Method

Bring a litre of water to the boil and pour over the noodles. Leave for 15 minutes, then drain.

While the noodles are soaking, trim the fat off the steak and slice into thin (less than half centimetre wide) strips and set aside.  Bring the oil up to temperature, add the chilli, ginger and spring onions and fry until soft. Next add three cups of water and crumble in the stock cube. Add salt to taste.

Put the drained noodles in a bowl, add bean sprouts, coriander, basil and mint leaves place the strips of beef on top then pour the boiling broth over the top. Add extra chilli to taste and serve.