Miles Collins

A recipe for an Asian style beef salad…

This is a dish I have revisited in one format or other many times over the years. Ever since my first encouter with the infamous green papaya salad at a street vendor’s stall in Bangkok the memory of red hot chillies combined with fish sauce, lime juice and palm sugar has stayed with me ever since. Whatever its variation be it meat, fish or vegetable it has an addictive quality. Once you get past the initial heat rush the complexities of the flavours takes over and you know you are eating one of the world’s great salads.

Without doubt one of the best selling dishes I have ever put on a menu it has also had a marked effect on many of the chefs I have introduced it to. It is a different style of salad and dressing to what we in the West are accustomed to and the liberal use of fresh herbs offers new ideas for more interesting Western ’standards’. Since that first trip to Thailand I have purposely tried beef salads on visits to Asia ever since in order to better understand the making and execution of this classic. What I like to do is serve the beef hot because I believe the concept of hot and cold can, in some cases really work and the hot beef is perfect with this style of dressing. We use fillet in the restaurants but a good quality ‘frying steak’ is perfectly acceptable as are some left over cold cuts from your Sunday roast.

What you put in your salad is down to personal taste, I like to use a variety of textures so peanuts or cashews go in as do some pak choi, radish, tomato, beansprouts, a few green beans and plenty of herbs such as coriander/cilantro, mint, dill and Asian basil. The key to this salad is using nice frsh, crisp ingredients with plenty of crunch. Add a little of the dressing to the salad and mix lightly, add your beef then add a little more. I like to serve mine straight away, some believe in allowing the flavours to rest for a while but not me. Each to their own!

A simple Thai style salad dressing:

2 tablespoons fish sauce
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
2 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons palm sugar
2-3 red shallots or half a small red onion chopped
3-4 bird’s eye chillies (to taste)
2 tablespoons chopped coriander leaves or 1 fresh root
Pinch of salt

In a large pestle and mortar, crush the garlic with the salt, add the coriander and chillies and roughly pound. Stir in the sugar, fish sauce, lime juice and finely chopped shallots.

Asian Beef and Noodle Salad