In recent years, Thai restaurants have sprung up in big cities around the world like mushrooms after rain. And why? Someone like pad-thai noodles or tom-yam soup inspire pleasant memories of a vacation spent on Koh Samui, Phuket or Koh Phangan. And those who have never been to the Kingdom of Smiles just love Thai food for their unrivaled taste. But you can enjoy them not only in the Asian restaurant. Do not worry that in Europe you can’t get ingredients like lemongrass or the Nam Phrik mixture. Some dishes in the countries of Southeast Asia are prepared from ingredients that are quite accessible to everyone. These include Thai salad with beef. Today we will learn how to do it.
But before we start cooking, get acquainted with some of the principles of Thai cuisine. The first of them is harmony in everything. Europeans may not agree: the spices, in their opinion, are too much there. But you can make a salad tailored to your taste preferences. In all other respects, Thai cuisine is an ideal combination of products in terms of healthy eating. And salads are especially useful.
Thai meal
In the language of this nation, the words “food” and “eat rice” are synonyms. Boiled white grain is present at any meal. Thais serve other ingredients for rice. In ancient times it was fish, seafood, meat in various gravy. But be sure to have fresh rice next to salads, one of which was spicy. The era of globalization has enriched Thai cuisine with many previously unknown vegetables. This is cabbage, and canned peas with corn, bunches of salad, herbs, tomatoes, carrots, zucchini and other garden gifts. Thai salad with beef is a kind of mix of western and eastern cuisines. The ingredients in it are the most common. They can be found in any European supermarket. But these components undergo purely Asian processing, that is, minimal. Thanks to this approach, all the useful substances of the ingredients are preserved intact, in order to saturate our body not only with calories, but also with health.
Replacing dinner
There are a lot of recipes for Thai salad with beef. This dish is very hearty, but at the same time not too high in calories. And if you do not want to overeat at night, but want to have dinner with something light, prepare a warm look of such a salad. The meat is cooked for him at the very end, so that it does not have time to cool. Of the exotic products for such a dish, we need only soybean sprouts (115 grams) and oyster sauce (two tablespoons).
In Thai salads, vegetables are not without reason cut into strips obliquely. This form allows the ingredients not to cake. The salad turns out to be “fluffy”, and the rich color palette of the components makes it also beautiful. Cut the cucumber and tomato into strips . Spread in a salad bowl. Beef tenderloin (325 g) is cleaned of veins, washed and cut into thin slices as for beef stroganoff. One hundred and fifty grams of fresh mushrooms (champignons are the best choice) are cleaned, washed and chopped with thin plates.
Pour some vegetable oil into the wok pan. We calcinate it and spread the meat. We fry the beef until golden brown. Add champignons and soybean sprouts to it. Stir constantly in a pan. Spread on a cucumber with tomato. Season with salt, pepper and oyster sauce. Immediately serve.
Thai salad with beef and bell pepper
Thanks to a fresh cucumber, this appetizer seems very light. But at the same time she is quite satisfying. And sweet pepper perfectly emphasizes the taste of meat prepared using the deep fry technology (deep frying). Three hundred grams of beef tenderloin cut into long strips. In a wok (or ordinary frying pan), we heat some vegetable oil. Fry pieces of meat in it until they become crispy. We shift the beef into a colander to stack excess fat.
Let's take care of vegetables. From the yellow peppers we extract the seeds. Cut the flesh into strips, as well as a large cucumber peeled. But six cherry tomatoes should be simply halved. This salad goes a lot of greens. We need to finely chop a small bunch of cilantro, four feathers of onions, a few leaves of mint. We cover the flat dish with one or two lettuce leaves. Put meat on this green rug. We lay vegetables - peppers, tomatoes, cucumber. Sprinkle with greens on top.
Now we prepare the main thing, which determines the taste of the dish - dressing. Finely chop three cloves of garlic or skip through the press. Mix it with a tablespoon of sugar, the juice of half a lemon, a small amount of olive oil. Dilute this mixture with soy sauce. Dressing, pour Thai salad with beef and bell pepper and, sprinkled with sesame seeds on top, immediately serve.
Cucumber Appetizer
Light, delicate, piquant - this dish cannot but be liked. First make the sauce. To do this, in a jar with a lid, we dissolve the same amount of brown (cane) sugar in five tablespoons of lime juice. We share 4 tbsp. l soy sauce and two - sesame oil. Screw on the lid and shake it vigorously with a jar so that all the ingredients in the dressing enter the compound.
In this Thai beef salad, we use whole steaks. Therefore, the dish would be more appropriate to call a snack. Fry steaks to the extent you like. Spread on half the dish. Next put the actual salad.
We chop the head of Beijing cabbage. Remove the peel from the cucumber, cut it into half rings. We extract the bones from two avocados. Cut the pulp into small cubes. We clean the seeds from the chili pepper and finely chop. Cut the carrots and two tomatoes into slices. Finely chopped green cilantro. We need three tablespoons. Mix vegetables and cilantro. Spread next to the steaks. Pour sauce over the whole dish.
Thai salad with beef and green beans
Fry steaks, then bake until cooked, cut into slices. Immerse the meat in a marinade made from six tablespoons of soy sauce, three - balsamic vinegar, two - vegetable oil, 1 tsp . honey and chopped chili without seeds. There we will send a sweet onion chopped in half rings and 0.5 kilograms of boiled green beans. Dish lightly sprinkle with cilantro.
Tips
As you can see, Thai salad with beef is not difficult to prepare. The main thing is to act quickly. The main secret of Thai cuisine is the freshness of the ingredients. Dishes are often prepared directly at the client. Thus, we need to have time to serve the salad before the vinegar-soy dressing “ferments” the tender greens.