Thai Beef Salad Recipe, สูตรสลัดเนื้อไทย

I am so fortunate to be here in Ubon Ratchathani on this incredible walk bridge over this enormous rice field and we're going to be cooking a Thai beef salad or Lap Nua. Firstly we need to start with some good beef. Now this region is famous for its beef. With the beef we've got this cut into three pieces about half an inch thick so it cooks quickly. These grill plates are fantastic. You can just put it on the charcoal grill and let it turn. So while that's cooking we're going to make the dressing. Dressing is so simple. Some white sugar, some lime juice, equal parts and some fish sauce. Give that a quick stir just to dissolve the sugar and then we add the other ingredients. Some red shallots, finely sliced, sawtooth coriander cut into half inch pieces, some baby spring onions, some chopped coriander and some fresh mint and with the mint just break that apart to release the flavour more. Again we give that a quick toss and then we check our beef. An amazing colour. The meat's almost popping as it cooks. The heat's so intense. Really great way of cooking. Next ingredient for the salad. We've got some dry chilli powder, about two teaspoons. Isan food is hot. Make it nice and spicy and then we add our ground toasted rice. Just rice toasted in a wok, no oil and then ground in a mortar and pestle to a fine powder. About one tablespoon. We can add more at the end if we need it. Now what we have to do as the sun sets is wait for our beef to finish cooking. A selection of recipes from the series are available in my new cookbook available at dunkinstyekitchen.com. Okay the beef is medium rare. You can do it well done if you like but I think this salad is best with a slightly undercooked piece of beef. We let that rest for a minute and then we cut it. When you do use a cut of meat that is very rare just cut it a little bit thinner. Makes it much easier to chew. Put that beef into the salad. Toss that around and let all the dressing soak into the beef. It's delicious. Quick taste. Touch more fish sauce and a touch more rice. Ground toasted rice. Now just to serve that really simply in a bowl. Put all the dressing in on top and then some fresh spring onions, sawtooth coriander and a little bit of cabbage on the side and the best way to eat this salad is to grab a piece of the meat, a piece of the cabbage, wrap it all up together and eat it. So simple. Here again as the sun sets in Ubon Ratchathani, a larp nua or a Thai beef salad. On the next episode we visit the mighty Mekong River. I cook a traditional Isan curry by the Moonlight Waterfall and I'll show you how to prepare a steamed river fish.