Thai Beef Salad
Whenever I have a cold I seem to want spicy. Almost immediately after eating chicken soup at lunch, I knew that we had to have something with SPICE for dinner. We both love Thai, Lenny more so, so I knew when I mentioned that I wanted a Thai inspired dinner there would not be any objections.
On our cold scooter ride home we decided to swing by Bi-Rite to pick up the necessities for dinner, while braving the cold, I knew this meal would hit the spot! I have seen a few different recipes for Thai Beef Salad, a few of them over at Donna Hay’s place as well as over at the Steamy Kitchen. Just happens while wandering the store I completely forget what I needed, so I decide to wing it. Needless to say once getting home I realized I had forgotten basil, mint and cucumbers, so tonight’s salad would be Chez Us inspired Thai Beef Salad. The good news is once we got home I remembered that Brother John gave us some of his homegrown Thai peppers so I did not have to use the ones we picked up!
I made a dressing of equal parts raw sugar, fish sauce, soy sauce and fresh squeezed lime juice, then I microplaned some lemon grass, lime zest and chili pepper into it, giving it a shake shake shake and letting rest for about 45 minutes. Then I prepared a bed of baby red romaine, cilantro, red peppers, red onions and tomatoes; I don’t think there are usually tomatoes but I kind of lost my mind back at the grocery store. I wanted the grassfed beef to be simple so that the dressing and veggies would be a nice compliment. I used the stove top grill and cooked the beef with some sesame oil and lightly seasoned with salt and pepper.
After laying thinly sliced pieces of beef across the greens, I drizzled the dressing and garnished with more lime zest and diced Thai peppers. The salad was refreshing, spicy and exactly what the doctor ordered!
Yum. I love Thai inspired anything. I never thought of using the microplane to grate lemongrass though. Does that work well?
Yummy! Homegrown Thai peppers, how cool.
I think I will make this tonight as I have a bunch of mint and cucumbers in the fridge from making a cucumber. honeydew, and mint salad last night.
We do a similar salad except we add a layer of crispy fried vermicelli noodles. The warmth of the noodles heats the lettuce a bit but makes it come together with the beef, dressing and garnish unbelievably well! Now I’m hungry! Guess I better brave a Calgary blizzard and grab some ingredients! Thanks for the idea!
This looks yummy, I’ll definitely make this ASAP. Just made a raw-papaya Thai salad and was so impressed with it, so I’m currently on a ‘love Thai-salads’ streak
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That looks lovely! A perfect meal to end the day! I’d like to invite you to take some time to drop by at Foodista and share your delicious recipe with us. We have launched an online food and cooking encyclopedia ala wikipedia. Add a recipe and you can win a $100 gift card to Sur la table. Don’t forget to register first so we know who to thank the recipe for. Thanks!
Thanks for reminding me of this salad. Used to be one of my favorites but I haven’t had it in ages. Your version looks delicious!
Tasty! I really like meat salads as they offer the best of both worlds! Beautiful picture.
I love this dish!