Thai-style sticky mince

I find that whenever we have minced beef, we seem to have the same heavy flavours every time. I have found a favourite in Spiced Beef Rice Noodles and I really like the balance in that dish, but DD would never choose to eat it. He will eat it if I make it, but I know he would prefer another combination of flavours, so I have to keep looking for a nice minced beef recipe.

When we were grocery shopping one day I succumbed to the temptation to buy one of the cheap cookbooks they have at the checkouts and it was all about minced meat. We went through it together and decided to try the Thai-style sticky minced beef.

I made quite a few modifications to the recipe to take into account DD's preferences and the contents of my pantry and I can confidently say that what I ended up with is nothing like what's in the book. Which is probably a good thing, as I found this to be way too sweet and cloying. DD liked it though.

Thai-style sticky mince

olive oil spray
500g minced beef
2 tsp minced beef
1/8 cup palm sugar
1/8 cup brown sugar
1 tsp coriander paste
1 tsp chilli paste
2 tbs fish sauce
1/4 cup lime juice
4 kaffir lime leaves, shredded
1/4 cup deep fried shallots
soy sauce, to taste

Coat a large frying pan with olive oil spray and cook garlic and mince until brown. Remove from pan.

Combine sugar, fish sauce, lime juice, lime leaves in the frying pan, bring to the boil. Simmer the mix until it starts to caramalise and thicken. Put the mince back in the pan with some of the fried shallots and turn in the sugar mixture. Cook until the mixture is sticky but not dry. Taste at this point, add more lime juice or soy sauce if necessary.

Serve over rice, sprinkling with more lime juice and the rest of the fried shallots.