Trim herb stems and rinse leaves. Keep sprigs whole. Clean lettuce leaves. Rinse sprouts, and remove “tails” if desired. Prepare cucumber.
To serve, arrange lettuce leaves and cucumber on the side.

Severs 4-6

Note: This is a typical salad to accompany Vietnamese meal. Vary your use of lettuce and herbs as desired. You can also, to a lesser extent, use pennywort (rau ma), the miniature, cumin-scented rice paddy herb (ngo om) and strong-tasting fish leaf (rau diep ca). Unlike a western salad, where each diner has their own bowl, the greens are picked from central platter. Lettuce leaves are torn to a suitable size to wrap bite-sized pieces of meat. Softened sheets of rice paper often accompany this salad.

Hint: Lettuce may be cleaned and refrigerated prior to use, this helps to crips the leaves. Herbs can be delicate so they should be kept dry and refrigerated in plastic bags. Only rinse immediately prior to serving.

Variation: soup herbs (Thom mui) A smaller selection of fresh herbs, specifically accompanying various soup dishes and some starter course, includes scallions (shallots/ spring onion), eryngo (sawtooth coriander) leaves, cilantro (fresh coriander) sprigs, Vietnamese mint (rau ram), dill and bean sprouts. Accompany with fresh long red chilies cut into small rings, fish sauce or Nuoc Cham Sauce ,and lemons or lime wedges.

Ingredients:

Fresh herbs of choice, such as sprigs of cilantro (fresh coriander) (au mui/ rau ngo), peppermint and spearmint (rau baa ha/ rau huong lui), Vietnamese mint (rau ram ), perilla (rau tia to), Vietnamese lemon balm (rau king gioi), eryngo(sawtooth coriander) (rau mui tau/ rau ngo gai), piper leaf (bo la lot ), and sweet Thai basil (rau hung que), see ingredients .
Leaves from 1-2 heads butter (Boston) lettuce
Leaves from 1 red or green leaf lettuce (oak leaf, Lollo Rossa or coral)
2 cups (4 oz/ 125 g) bean sprouts rinsed and drained
1/2 cucumber, seeded and thinly sliced