Non-traditional Thai Beef Salad
In homage to City Dad's predilection for the spicy foods:
This is a bastardized family version of Thai beef salad that packs a punch, and is best served IMO with white rice, kimchee and whole cabbage leaves (you use them to eat the rice and beef) or alternatively seaweed for Korean burrito style. The process itself doesn't take long, and you can obviously modify the "hot pepper" factor depending on whether your guests can tolerate spicy food or not.
3-4 lbs of flank steak (you can use Costco fillet mignon if you want some truly quality meat, and sirloin is a good compromise so long as fat is trimmed off)
1 bunch of mint coursely chopped
1 bunch of cilantro breaken up by hand
3 or 4 green onion stalks finely chopped
2 medium purple onions
1/4 cup of rice vinegar
2 large tablespoons of Viet fish sauce (do not omit this!)
1/2 cup of brown sugar (1/4 cup if you do not like hot & sweet taste)
6-8 cloves of FRESH garlic, finely minced
1/2 cup of lime juice
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 or 2 dried red peppers (substitute your favorite pepper here, so long as it is dried, and finely chopped...I use a food processor OUTSIDE to do this, or you'll be sneezing forever. Mex markets or Viet markets have plenty of choices for dried peppers)
Take a large bowl, marinate the onions in with rice vinegar, fish sauce & lemon juice and sugar and tbl spoon olive oil.
Take the beef and sear in butter until it is at most medium rare. While hot, cut into very very thin bite size slices. The idea is to let the meat bleed out the juices a little on your cutting board.
Take the beef and put in bowl with onions. Take the rest of all the ingredients and dump in bowl, and using a wooden spoon, thoroughly work the ingredients in together. If you're using flank, it's best to actually pound the meat with a pestle to soften it up. Let sit in fridge for a couple hours, and you will discover the citrus & vinegar will have cooked the meat a bit more. I serve it room temp, but warmed up in the microwave is good, as well as cold....everyone is different it seems.
This dish is best the next day after everything has fused together more. Some people add the cucumber but I find it gets mushy too quick, and doesn't taste as good the next day. Others add peanuts or thinly sliced raw carrots (which soften with time in the mixture)...also good.
These portions will easily serve 4-5.
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Originally Posted by Fisherman57
