A recipe that is great for a light summer meal: Hot and sour beef salad. Don't worry, there is not that much of the dangerous lettuce in it. You will need per person.

A thickish piece of fillet steak (roughly 200g)
Four lettuce leaves
One shallot finely chopped
One red chili finely chopped
Two dessert-spoonfuls of Thai fish sauce, Nam Pla
Two dessert-spoonfuls freshly squeezed lime juice
A teaspoonful of sugar

Fry the fillet steak for one and a half minutes a side at the hottest temperature you can get a pan up to. Whilst frying that arrange the four lettuce leaves on a plate. Mix the fish sauce, lime juice and sugar in a small vessel. When the steak is fried it should be incredibly rare. Slice the steak into thin strips and arrange these on top of the lettuce; there should be the thinnest of crusts on each side of the steak slices, with a big rare stripe down the middle. Sprinkle the chopped shallots and chilies over the top and pour over the fish sauce/lime juice mix.

It should all look like this:

If you get really fiery chilies it is alright to scrape some of them off the meat to leave them, but really this is a dish to make you sweat and feel good over the summer. It is light, themed on meat and very invigorating; what more could you ask for?

David