Thai style salad with stewed beef

Thai salads are spicy, fresh tasting and glorious. They are vibrant, colourful and full of flavour. Seared beef is a common Thai salad ingredient. We love to have a hot, fiery, fresh tasting seared beef salad every now and then. Other than the preparation of the salad ingredients, is a swift and easy weekday supper. 

But every now and then you crave something a little different. As we are still in the middle of Winter, we've been enjoying lots of casseroles, curries and stews with slow cooked and tender meat. So we got to thinking, what would a Thai salad be like with a slow cooked and tender beef instead of quickly seared?

This dish was the result of our experimentation. Much of the credit goes to Him Indoors, my stalwart life partner and joint head chef. I don't profess to say that this dish is authentic. Hence the "Thai style" moniker. It is an imagining of a Thai salad with a few twists. The first being the slow cooked beef. The second being the dressing, which although it includes a number of classic Thai ingredients, would be highly unlikely to include Oyster Sauce. It was chosen as it so beautifully complements beef.

This recipe will require overnight marinading. So please note that there are definite stages to this recipe. Stage one is the marinading overnight, so you need to plan ahead. Then there is the second stage, the stewing, which will take a fair amount of time. Then the third is preparing the salad and dressing. You will need to plan when you want to make this dish accordingly.

Hopefully you will like this new recipe. Please get in touch with your impressions, thoughts and feedback in the comments below.

Happy cooking and happy eating!

Thai style salad with stewed beef

Serves 2

Ingredients:

350g sirloin steak cut into 1" (2.5cm) cubes

For the beef marinade:

1 stick lemongrass, peeled and very finely sliced

50ml fish sauce

For the beef stew:

1 stick lemongrass, peeled and cut into chunks of 1" (2.5cm)

1 birds eye chilli, chopped

1 400ml can coconut milk

For the salad:

8 cherry tomatoes, halved

1 yellow pepper cut into slices/chunks

a handful of fresh coriander leaves, chopped roughly

a handful of fresh mint leaves, chopped roughly

1 to 2 Thai shallots, sliced finely

For the dressing:

1 lime, juiced

1 birds eye chilli, chopped finely (deseeded if you don't like your food too hot)

3 cloves garlic, crushed

1 tbsp fish sauce

1 1/2 tbsp oyster sauce

1 1/2 tbsp palm sugar, crushed/ground

Method:

Prepare your beef by cutting to size and then marinading overnight with the fish sauce and lemongrass in the fridge in a non-metallic container. A plastic sealable container would be perfect.

The next day, drain away the marinade and discard the first stick of lemongrass. Put in a saucepan with the second stick of lemongrass, the chilli and the contents of the can of coconut milk. 

Put on the hob and cook on a simmer for 40 minutes. 

Drain away the coconut milk and pick out the lemongrass. 

Prepare your dressing, ensuring it is thoroughly mixed. The oyster sauce and palm sugar will be difficult to mix. Either whisk up or put in a jar and shake vigourously. Leave for 10 minutes or so for the flavours to combine.

Assemble the salad, by mixing up the tomatoes, red onion, peppers and herbs, piling the beef on top and then dressing.

Enjoy immediately before the herbs get soggy.