Mountains of Salad

Years ago, pre BuBba, when we were living in London, I began collecting recipes.  Piles upon piles of recipes.  I never compiled them, in fact, I never even tried them but I still brought them back home with me to Oz in a big messy stack.  Eventually I got around to putting them into a scrapbook but they continued to remain unused.

I pulled the scrapbook out of the bottom drawer the other day when I was trying to work out what to prepare for our anniversary dinner.  I almost expected moths to come flying out!  There's some crackers of recipes in there and I intend to make more use of my scrapbook recipe book.

Now to dinner...

I seriously underestimated how much salad I was making.  There was SO much that I decided to postpone the chicken fettucine until tonight so stay tuned for that tomorrow.

Vietnamese Beef Salad

500g sirloin steak

salt and freshly ground black pepper

500g Chinese cabbage, shredded

handful coriander leaves, coarsely chopped

handful mint leaves, coarsely chopped

1 generous cup mung bean sprouts

150g peanuts, roasted and coarsely chopped

4 tbsps Asian fried shallots

Dressing

2cm piece fresh giner, peeled and coarsley chopped

1 clove garlic, coarsely chopped

2 tsps sugar

1/4 tsp chilli flakes

3 tbsps freshly squeezed lime juice

1 tbsp fish sauce

Make dressing first:  Combine ginger, garlic, sugar and chillin in a processor and whiz until finely chopped.  Add the lime jice and the fish sauce and blend until smooth.  Set aside.  Season the steak with salt and pepper, then grill over a high heat until charred on the outside, but still pink within, about 3-4 minutes per side.  Set aside for 10 minutes, then slice thinly.  Combine in a large bowl with the Chinese cabbage, coriander, mint leave, mung bean sprouts and the dressing.  Toss well and sprinkle with peanuts and fried shallots.  Serve immediately.  (Serves 4)

*I altered the recipe slightly and ommitted the mint (forgot to buy some) and ginger (don't like it) and fried my own shallots.