One of my all time favorite dishes – ever – is Thai beef salad. I make it at home often and I order it in Thai restaurants whenever I have the opportunity to go. My mother makes the best beef salad but I do the best I can.

Disclaimer – if you are a vegetarian, this is definitely not the dish for you.

To make it truly authentic, you will need to make the ground rice. This can be done in one big batch and stored for later use. That being said, I make this dish many times without it. It can be time consuming and I’ll skip if I’m desperate and in a hurry. That being said, please know that it does add quite a bit of authenticity to the salad if you take the time and make it.

Ground rice:

Brown some rice on the stove top. This is only about a half a cup but you can do as much as you want and put it aside.

Increase the heat until the rice begins to look brown. You must stir constantly. This is important. Do not walk away to finish a load of laundry. Trust me.

Once the rice is a nice brown color, take it off the stove and let cool. Once it’s cool, you can put it in a grinder/mixer and ground the rice to a fine but not too powdery mix. There should be small pieces of rice for texture.

You can put the rice in a container and put it aside to store or you can go ahead and make the rest of the dish.

I use a London Broil cut because it’s affordable and what my mother used:) If however, you are feeling frisky and rich, go for a nicer cut.

This is a three pound piece of meat. I know it’s a lot but I put the rest aside for leftovers.

Now we chop.

1. Chop a bundle of well washed cilantro, more if you like.
2. Chop red onion into slivers.
3. Chop the mint.
4. Cut cherry tomatoes in half.
5. Chop the hot peppers into small pieces.

Speaking of peppers…this is definitely one ingredient that you can moderate according to you own taste. Our household (everyone but the boy) can eat very spicy food. If you are not as experienced with it, put in only what you are comfortable with. I am not going to post a quantity for how much pepper to put in. It’s up to you.

If you don’t have small Thai peppers as shown in the photo, you can use whatever pepper you like. Last week, I used McCormick ground pepper. Works just fine! Mint as shown here is also something that you can choose to put in if you can find it. My yard was overgrown with it for a period of time.

Ingredients:

1. 2 1/2 pounds of beef (London Broil)
2. 1/2 cup Thai fish sauce
3. 1/4 cup water
4. Juice of one lime (here’s how you cut that lime.)
5. 2 – 3 tablespoons of chopped Thai hot peppers (or any other pepper to taste.)
6. 2 cups chopped cilantro
7. 2 cups thinly sliced red onion
8. 1 cup chopped fresh mint
9. 1 cup halved cherry tomatoes
10. 1/4 cup ground rice

Directions:

Grill or broil the beef. Be careful to not over-cook it. Leave some pink in the middle.

Slice the beef into small slivers being careful to discard any fat.

Put in the fish sauce, water and juice of one lime. Toss well (sometimes I’ll use my hands.) Put in ground rice. Toss well. Put in the peppers. Toss well. Put in all chopped and prepared vegetables. Toss well.

I make it for guests quite often and they love it! Even some of the boys at the lake ate it. You gotta try it.

This is just one of the sauces that I use for the eggrolls and for so much more. I watched my mother make this sauce before I knew what ponzu sauce was. Now I make it all the time.

That’s what I get for living in Japan.

When you google ponzu sauce you see that you’ll need, mirin, sake, dashi, bonito, lemon juice, etc, etc, etc. I like to drink sake (and some of you can attest to how much I like to drink it) but I don’t like the taste in food. Mirin is hard to find, and dashi broth takes too much time to make.

Take it from me, you don’t need all that. You need just three things (can’t deviate from these three) and you will need a spice option, like peppers. And you need pretty bowls. You can’t make ponzu sauce unless you have pretty bowls.

Ok, ok, here’s the ponzu recipe…

You will need:

Soy sauce
Rice vinegar
Sugar
Hot Peppers (optional)

I use reduced sodium soy sauce and now can really tell the difference between that and the full strength. The full strength soy sauce is not a bad thing. It’s just better for your blood pressure to use the reduce sodium. But I don’t want to preach. It’s up to you and up to your circulatory system.

I don’t have quantities, it depends on how much you want to make. I do two part soy sauce to one part rice vinegar. I like a lot of sauce, so I make a lot. Most of the time, we tend to run out.

Put in about 1 teaspoon to sugar to about one quarter cup of soy sauce. Those of you who are persnickity about details like measurement will find this a little frustrating. I’m sorry. Just keep tasting it. If it tastes good to you, stop putting in sugar.

That’s it…except.

There’s this. Hot peppers. I normally use dry peppers to put in sauce. We’ll talk about different kinds of peppers another time…if you can’t take the heat, don’t put it in.

Now that’s really it. You’re done.

Tonight we are putting the ponzu sauce onto pan fried gyoza since the husband and I had a huge – I mean huge – hamburger with Roquefort and bacon for lunch. We shouldn’t even be eating dinner. I’ll show to I make gyoza another time. You won’t believe how easy it is…really you won’t believe it.

I have two other sauces to show you…but I won’t be able to until next week. I have a horsey project for the girl I have to finish by this weekend. And I may actually have to go into work…

Bon appetite.

I use a London Broil cut for my Waterfall Beef. If you want to splurge, you can use a tenderloin, that would be delicious. But this cut is good for your wallet.

There’s no marinating or anything fancy. Just throw it into the broiler. Broil it until it gets a nice crust on each side, about 4-5 minutes. I like it medium rare but it’s up to your taste of course.

Later on, we’re going to chop everything up…

Here is the beef at the Lemongrass Restaurant.
Here are the fresh ingredients.

Sorry about the dirty oven, but it’s well used and well loved.

These are the fresh ingredients you’ll need for the Waterfall Beef.

Red Onion
Cherry Tomatoes
Limes
Cilantro
Mint
Chili peppers

I love this cilantro. It smells heavenly.

The fresh mint, I love the smell. I breathe it in.

Thai chili peppers. You can use dried peppers,  you can use McCormick’s peppers, or if you’re wimpy, don’t use any. But it won’t be the same.

Trust me. Go forth and shop.

I’m going to show you how to make this next week.

I don’t know why it’s called Waterfall Beef.  My mother calls it  yum nuk, without the “k” sound. I call it beef salad. You’ll call it delicious.

Some people eat lots of spaghetti and meat balls. We eat a lot of beef salad. Until then!

Another reason I’m not going to go into minute detail about how to make it is because you can’t get it anywhere outside of an Asian store. I know. I’ve looked. And Neighbor Yvonne has looked. So that’s bad news if we run out. I drive to civilization to get it. Around here that means, an hour drive or more. If you ask, and if I know you personally and if you live within 10 minutes of me, I’ll get you some the  next time I’m at either of those places. Just let me know.

That was the worst grammar. Mrs. Brush  my old English teacher is turning in her grave. At least I think she’s dead. She was pretty old when I was in high school. Anyway…moving on…

If you happen to be out and are looking for it, make sure you buy the package that says “Sweet Rice”. It’s not Jasmine rice, or short grained rice, or any other kind of rice except sweet rice.

Soak the rice in some water for about an hour. Sometimes I’ll put it in water in the morning then go do what I need to do the rest of the day. That way it will be ready when it’s time to cook dinner.

I also have this contraption that I bought at a Vietnamese store specifically to steam the rice in. I think you can just use a regular pot though.

Fill it with water and then put the rice in a bamboo steamer thingy. I don’t know what it’s called.

I told you I wasn’t going into great detail. I have no idea what some of these things are. I just have them. You can probably use any bamboo steamer. You can buy those anywhere. Just remember that it has to be porous but the pores have to be small enough so that the rice doesn’t fall through. But I probably didn’t have to say that, duh.

It takes about 7-10 minutes to steam. Just keep checking it. If you steam it too long it will get soggy and too sticky. Once it’s done, I dump it all onto my counter top and spread it out to let it cool. Then I put it into a bamboo rice keeper thingy.

I’m going to let my mother demonstrate the dumping out process since I couldn’t take pictures while I did it. Really. Just dump it onto the counter.

My mom blows on it too, to help the heat dissipate.

pssst…these photos are from last Thanksgiving.

My mom has a nicer collection of rice keepers.  Every time she goes to Thailand she gets a couple of pretty ones. Almost everyone at the table has their own.

Once I argued with a street vendor in Chaing Mai, Thailand over how much I was going to pay for a rice keeper. She wanted $4.25 and I thought it was too much money so I didn’t buy it. The husband said “Do you know you were haggling over 25 cents?” It’s the principle.

I know that you’re not going to rush out and make this after this dense explanation. I may have a sticky rice making party. Yes, I think that’s a great idea. Hmmm…

We’re not having sticky rice for dinner tonight. We’re having lemon chicken and pasta instead. The boys are watching the hockey game which is in over-time right now. That’s why I have time to write this post. If the game isn’t over soon, I’m going to eat without them.

Anyway, tonight we are having steak with red curried rice. Remember I told you that the best way to starting cooking Thai food is to start getting some things for your kitchen? Well here’s one thing you will need.

This red curry paste and you will not be ablet to get this particular brand at the local grocery store, but I have seen it at Giant. It’s in a smaller can and it says, well, Red Curry. It’s not as spicy as the green curry and I think it has more flavor than the Indian curries that you can get at Giant and Safeway.

I start with these things, red curry, vegetables and cooked rice. That’s my rice cooker and I’ve used it for so long that I don’t remember how to cook rice in a pot. The yellow squash was a gift from Neighbor Leigh who brought it from the University of Maryand where he works. I hope it didn’t come from the research labs there…it’s huge. The peppers are from my garden, the broccoli was left over from last night’s meal and the carrots are from a bag that the girl had for the horse. My point is, you can get fiberous vegetables from anywhere, and it almost doesn’t matter what the vegetables are. Choose vegetables with lots of color, I love yellow vegetables, and they are good for you. Go ahead and chop them.

I heat some oil (this time I used canola oil) and the red curry together in a pan. This is the same pan I used to fry my fish. It’s used a lot. I can’t give you exact measurements, so when I say “some” use about 4 tablespoons. Adjust as you go. After the oil and curry is heated, throw in the rice, throw in the chopped veggies and stir, stir, stir. If it’s too dry, pull the contents to the side and add some chicken stock. And stir some more.

Now, the secret ingredient. Remember I told you to go get some fish sauce? Well, it’s the secret ingredient in almost every Thai dish. Turn off the burner and add the fish sauce over the rice. Not too much, it may be too salty. Just enough to taste.

I served the rice with steak this night, but any protein will do. I try to have lean proteins but sometimes, a girl just has to have a big steak. The husband loved it, the kids had mac and cheese. One day, I’ll have to put that recipe up.

Bon appetit!