Thai Beef Salad

I love a good Thai Beef Salad. I love the gorgeous Thai flavours against the crispness of the leaves and meatiness of steak. I learned how to make an authentic Yum Nua when I took a Thai cooking class last year, but somehow I've managed to misplace my recipe and notes. I must try looking for them again...

Anyway, I love Thai Beef Salad. I recently expanded my Donna Hay recipe book collection and bought Modern Classics 1 and saw her simple recipe. I couldn't resist trying it out.

I loved it. The flavours were nicely melded together and were very smooth. It was a nice balance with the fish sauce and the lime, and neither flavour overpowered the other. Some salads that I have tasted had stronger flavours which I don't always like and I do tend to mute my flavours a little bit when making the salad especially since D doesn't like fish sauce.

It was a nice simple recipe, very easy to pull together. It's now my go-to beef salad recipe until I find my Yum Nua recipe!

Thai Beef Salad
from Modern Classics Book 1 by Donna Hay

650g rump steak
150g salad greens
2 small red onions, finely sliced
10 kaffir lime leaves, shredded
3 large mild chillies, seeded and shredded
2/3 cup coriander leaves
2/3 cup mint leaves
2/3 cup basil leaves (I omitted the basil)

Dressing

1 tsp soy sauce
2 tbs fish sauce
2 tbs lime juice
2 tbs brown sugar or palm sugar (I used brown sugar, I didn't like it as much using palm)

Cook the steak to your liking and set aside to rest. After resting, slice thinly.

Combine the salad greens, onions, kaffir lime leaves, chilli, coriander, mint and basil in a bowl and toss lightly.

Combine the dressing ingredients in a small bowl. Add the sliced steak to the salad greens and pour over dressing. Serve.

Sometimes I like to add the chillies to the dressing and sometimes I will marinate the cooked steak strips in some of the dressing to really get the flavour. If I'm taking the salad for lunch, I will put the steak, salad and dressing in separate containers and combine just before serving.