PicoBlog

This salad really is one of my favourite things to eat at this time of year, (and really all times of the year if I’m being honest)! It’s so fresh and zingy and provides such a delicious contrast to the rich Christmas food we’ve all been enjoying.

This is the kind of salad where it really all comes down to the dressing. The dressing is the star of the show, the leading lady, the one you tell your friends about….you get the drift. That is so often the case with salads, although having said that, I am also a fan of just a good drizzle of olive oil and a little squeeze of lemon juice - so simple but so good. But this dressing is a superstar, honestly once you’ve made it you’ll be making it on a regular basis. It’s one I’ve been making for very many years now as I learnt how to make it on a cooking course in Thailand when I was 18…which was…a while ago now!

That’s surely one of the best things about travelling isn’t it? Getting to explore a country through the food and learning about the culture by getting off the beaten track and discovering delicious dishes you’ve never had before. I loved the food in Thailand so much - so many amazing things I’d never tried before so when we stumbled across a cookery school in Pai in Northern Thailand we jumped at the chance to learn some of the local dishes. I’ve still got the recipe book of dishes we learnt to cook, a book I treasure and this dressing is adapted from there. And it’s so good. Zingy, strong, fresh and fiery.

This dressing begins with a pestle and mortar. Although don’t panic if you don’t have one as you can just use a knife to crush it into a paste-like consistency - I will go into it in the notes. I actually didn’t have a pestle and mortar for a long time but I eventually gave in and I have found I use it a lot and there is something undeniably satisfying and stress relieving about the bashing that’s involved. They are also one of the pieces of kitchen kit that actually looks lovely sitting on the side so I don’t mind it sitting out and also that way I’m more inclined to use it.

For me, a great Thai Beef Salad comes down to the perfect balance of flavours in the dressing and so this recipe is actually very specific. Normally you will know that I am not such a stickler for precise measurements, but here it is necessary if you want to get the balance right, and I want you to get it right, so rather than a clove of garlic I’m going to tell you to measure it in teaspoons because cloves of garlic etc vary massively in size. Trust me, you will be rewarded by being accurate! I wouldn’t tell you to bother if it wasn’t necessary, I hope you know that by now.

This is also incidentally a great recipe for making a good piece of steak go a long way. Slice a steak and toss it through a salad and you’ll find it serves 2 very happily, when served any other way it might feel a bit mean. But like this in this salad it feels plentiful and generous. And good steak is expensive so I think this is a good tip!

If you live in a house that does not deem a salad to be an appropriate supper…don’t worry, even the most ardent of salad dodgers are going to like this salad. And it’s also how you present it. Toss the salady bits with the dressing and lay it on their plate topped with sliced steak and crushed peanuts… and suddenly it’s steak and salad not a steak salad!

Cooking steak is one of those thing that people can get stressed out about but like anything it just comes down to practice. And it’s much easier than you might think. I’ve given these tips before but there are so many new faces here I thought it might be useful to give a recap.

My top steak cooking tips

1. Bring the steak to room temperature

This makes an amazing difference to cooking the steak through evenly

2. Pat dry and season the steak generously with salt and pepper

This helps form the delicious crust on the outside of a perfectly cooked steak

3. Get your pan SMOKING HOT before putting the steak in

This is important, if your steak doesn’t sizzle in quite an excited way when you lay it in the pan, you’re never going to get the golden crust on the outside

4. Rub your steak with olive oil, don’t put the oil in the pan

If you don’t want to set off every smoke alarm in the house, this is key

5. Remove the steak from the pan BEFORE it get’s to your perfect level of “doneness” because the internal temperature will continue to rise as it rests

6. REST your steak for 5 to 10 minutes

This is very very important and should never be skipped. This gives the steak time for the fibres to relax and so that the juices can soak back in. It makes the world of difference!

Serves 2

Dressing

1/2 tsp Birds Eye or Thai Chilli

1/4 tsp minced garlic, approx 1/2 clove

1 tbsp chopped coriander stems

2 1/4 tsp sugar

2 tbsp fish sauce

3 tbsp fresh lime juice

1 tbsp vegetable oil, or rapeseed or canola

1 small pinch Maldon salt

Salad

250g steak - the best you can get, I like rib eye, room temp, about 200g and 2cm thick

oil, salt and pepper for cooking the steak

2 handfuls of salad leaves, rocket, mixed lettuce leaves, butterhead - all good

small handful of cherry tomatoes, cut in half

1/2 cucumber, peeled, deeseeded, cut in half and then cut into slices

2 carrots, grated or cut into ribbons with a spiraliser

1 handful of trimmed green beans, boiled until al dente in salty water and then plunged into ice water

2 tbsp coriander leaves

2tbsp mint leaves

1/4 small red onion, sliced finely, sprinkled with Maldon and juice of half a lime, scrunched and left to sit for 10 mins

1/3 cup finely chopped peanuts

extra herbs for garnish

Method

For the dressing place the chilli, garlic, coriander stems and a pinch of Maldon into a pestle and mortar and give it a good bash until it forms a smooth paste

Pop this paste into a jam jar and add the fish sauce, sugar, lime juice and oil. Shake well and taste. Adjust as needed.

Make the quick pickled red onions by slicing them finely, sprinkling with Maldon and the juice of half a lime, scrunching them, for 30 seconds with your fingers and leave them to sit for 10 mins.

For the steak, get them out of the fridge at least 30 mins before you want to start cooking. It wants to be comfortably room temperature before you think about cooking. Pat the steak dry with some paper towel and then rub with the olive oil and season generously with Maldon salt and some pepper. Get the pan really nice and hot and then the steaks go in. Cook for 4 minutes for rare, and 5-6 mins for medium - flipping them over half way through.

Remove from the heat and allow to rest for 5 mins in a bowl before slicing thinly (and against the grain). Drizzle the sliced steak with about 2 tablespoons of the dressing.

Place the lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, cucumber, herbs and beans in a large bowl and toss with the remainder of the dressing. Add the sliced steak (and any of the excess dressing), sprinkle over the peanuts and pickled red onions and enjoy!

Thai Beef Salad With A Zingy, Fresh And Life Changing Dressing

86KB ∙ PDF file

Chilli

Birds Eye or Thai chillies are available in most supermarkets and are quite distinctive so really do try to find them if you can. They are small and have a fruity taste and are hot! Like, really quite hot but in a good way. They are extensively used in many Thai dishes, such as in Thai curries and in Thai salads, you can use the green as well as the ripe red chilis. Not all chillis are equal which I’m sure you know but just in case you didn’t I thought I’d flag it.

But Margie I don’t have a pestle and mortar!

If you don’t have a pestle and mortar, you can just use your knife and a chopping board. Crush the garlic before you begin and use a knife to really finely chop the coriander and the chilli. Then use the side of your knife to really mash the whole lot into a paste.

Slicing steak

You may have heard people talking about slicing steak “against the grain” before and not really known what they are talking about. But it’s something you can do to really make sure your steak tastes as good as it can as it’s going to make the beef so tender. And it’s very simple to do - when you look at the steak you will notice that most of the fibres are going in one direction - this is the grain! Lay the meat on the cutting board so that “the grain” appears as going from left to right, then use your knife to slice perpendicular to these lines or “across the grain”

Cooking green beans

This is a niche tip in some ways but one I feel weirdly passionate about. Overcooked green beans are gross. Limp and mushy and just unpleasant. But perfectly cooked beans are a thing of beauty. You want to cook them for about 5–7 minutes to get perfectly crisp but tender green beans—al dente. And always in salted water. Of course if you plan to cook the beans further after blanching them, then aim for a shorter cook time - more like 3–5 minutes and then you can char or sauté them without running the risk of overcooking the beans. A 5-7 minute cooked bean is perfectly cooked when you can bite through one without hearing it squeak.

Drain the beans and immediately plunge them into ice water to shock them. Drain again, then pat dry with paper towels. Whatever you do, do not skip the step of dunking the beans in cold water as soon as you remove them from the heat. Shocking the beans stops the cooking process and locks in their bright green colour.

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