SPICY BEEF SALAD
I fell in love with this simple dressing of garlic, chile, fish sauce, sugar, and lime in Vietnam and Cambodia. It’s the perfect blend of sweet, sour, salty, and bitter, and works with most seafood and meat, but is particularly good with steak.
Servings4
Ingredients
- 2ounces sirloin steaks7–9each
- Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- olive oil
- 2 carrotstrimmed and peeled
- 6 radishestrimmed and thinly sliced
- 8ounces cherry tomatoessliced in half
- leaves Bunch of mintonly, shredded
- 1 small shallotpeeled and thinly sliced
- 3 scallionstrimmed and shredded
- ½ large cucumbertrimmed, peeled, seeded, and sliced
- 2 baby Boston lettucesshredded
- ¼cup skinless peanutsto garnish
FOR THE THAI-STYLE DRESSING
- 1 Garlic Clovepeeled and roughly chopped
- 1 red chileseeded and chopped
- Sea Salt
- 2tsp grated palm sugar or palm sugar paste (available in Asian markets; if unavailableuse brown sugar)
- 2–3 Tbsp fish sauceor to taste
- Juice of 1–2 limes
Instructions
- Season the steaks with salt and pepper generously on both sides, pushing the seasoning into the meat. Add a dash of oil to a hot pan and cook the steaks over high heat on either side for 2–3 minutes (medium-rare). Hold the fat side of the steaks against the pan to render the fat. When cooked to your liking, remove the steaks from the heat and leave to rest, pouring any cooking juices on top.
- To make the dressing, put the garlic and chile in a mortar with a pinch of salt and grind to a paste. Add the sugar, fish sauce, and lime juice and stir with a spoon. Taste, add a little more lime juice if needed, and set aside.
- Meanwhile, using a vegetable peeler, cut the carrots into ribbons. Place in a bowl with the radishes, tomatoes, mint, shallot, scallions, cucumber, and lettuce. Add about 4–6 tablespoons of the dressing and mix well to combine.
- Thickly slice the steak at an angle. Toast the peanuts with a pinch of salt for a few minutes in a clean dry pan and roughly chop. Place the steak on top of the salad and scatter over the chopped peanuts. Drizzle over the remaining dressing and serve immediately.
HOW TO CHOOSE SALAD ONIONS
- Shallots are particularly good used raw in salads. They are sweet and flavorful and have none of the acridness of Spanish onions.
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