Beef Lemon Grass Noodle Salad (Bun)
Filed Under Beef, Entree, Recipe | Printer Friendly Page
Now this in no way is supposed to be a traditional or authentic Vietnamese noodle salad, also known as Bun. Given that, it’s one of the tastiest dishes I have come up with in a long time! The marinade and sauce have hints of Japanese and Thai in them. One great benefit is that everything can be served cold and be made ahead of time and is perfect for a light summertime meal. Some of the ingredients I use here are a little bit hard to find and can be somewhat pricey and of poor quality depending on where you shop. I take a run down to my local Asian grocery store to pick up the lemon grass ($1.00 for 4 stalks) and Kaffir Lime leaves ($1.00 for about 100 leaves); I can’t find the Kaffir Lime leaves at the big grocery store near me and when they do have lemon grass it’s moldy and it costs $3.00 for a half stalk! I also take a run down to the Mexican meat market where I can buy great produce for less, and this wonderful thinly-sliced skirt steak that I am using for this recipe.
Ingredients:
- 1 pound of thinly sliced Skirt Steak or Flank Steak
Marinade:
- 4 tablespoons of Peanut Oil
- 2 stalks of Lemon Grass, roughly chopped
- 2 cloves of Garlic, thinly sliced
- About 20 Kaffir Lime leaves, julienne
- ½ Serrano Pepper (or to your taste)
- 1 cup Rice Wine Vinegar
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup Brown Sugar, loosely packed
- 1/3 cup Soy Sauce
- 2 tablespoons Kosher Salt
For the salad:
- Rice Stick Noodles (I am using fresh ones today)
- Julienne of Carrot
- Bean sprouts
- Green Onion, chopped
- Chopped mixed herbs such as Cilantro, Mint and Thai Basil
- Limes and peppers to garnish
Heat a pan up with the peanut oil and fry the lemon grass, Kaffir limes leaves, garlic and Serrano’s for about 3 - 4 minutes over medium heat. This will help extract some of their luscious flavors.
Add the vinegar, water, soy sauce, brown sugar and salt adding the wet ingredients first to help dissolve the sugar instead of caramelizing it (that will come later on the grill). Lightly boil for 10 minutes uncovered reducing the liquid somewhat. After 10 minutes, pour the marinade into a bowl and let it completely cool down; you don’t want to add the meat to a warm marinade for bacteria reasons.
Whatever cut of meat you use, make sure it’s sliced real thin - this is a key part to help the marinade do its magic and to get maximum charring surface for caramelizing.
When the marinade is cool, reserve about a half cup by straining out the solids to make a smooth sauce. Place the meat in the rest of the marinade, chunks and all. Refrigerate this way for 4 - 8 hours.
Preheat the grill to smoking hot! Prep the salad ingredients and make the rice stick noodles according to the instructions on the package. When the noodles are done, run them under cold water to prevent them from sticking to each other and to cool them down to stop the cooking.
Grill the meat directly over an intense fire, scraping off any solids from the marinade while laying down the beef.
Let the meat caramelize well. Note: There is a thin line between caramelized and burnt!
Assemble the salad as shown or however you like. Serve the reserved sauce on the side as sort of salad dressing. Everything can be served cold but if the meat if warm that’s okay.
I tried this last night and it was amazing! Thanks for sharing this great recipe.
Thanks for the feedback. Glad you enjoyed it!
Really nice post - thanx for sharing
Stop Smoking Programs’s last blog post..The Bad Side Effects Of Diet Pills