Tiger Cries Salad

Description
A spicy Thai beef salad.

A fabulous summer meal, marinade the meat and make the dressing the night before then throw dinner together FAST. Excellent for casual dinner parties and dieters. I've had this mouth-watering salad at a couple of different Thai restaurants, I was unable to find a recipe so I combined several to make my own. This salad is very spicy yet the bursts of freshness from the lime and mint make it a celebration for the taste buds. It's extremely addictive and very healthy, no oil!



Marinade

 * 1 lb beef flank steak or beef sirloin steak or tenderloin beef (good quality)
 * 2 teaspoons white pepper
 * 2 tablespoons fish sauce
 * 4 tablespoons fresh lime juice
 * 2 tablespoons palm sugar
 * 8 cloves garlic, minced

Dressing

 * 2 tablespoons sugar
 * ½ cup fresh lime juice
 * 3 – 4 tablespoons fish sauce (to taste)
 * 4 – 6 shallots, minced
 * 4 – 6 serrano peppers, chilis very finely minced or ground to paste
 * 2 stalks lemongrass, remove outer stalk and slice very thin or grind
 * 3 tablespoons toasted rice powder (ground fine)

Salad

 * 1 lb fresh tender salad greens (i use the bagged spring mix) or bibb lettuce
 * 1 large red onion, thinly slivered
 * 1 bunch scallions or green onions, cut to ½ inch
 * 1 cucumber, peeled and seeded cut in half lengthwise and thinly sliced
 * cherry tomatoes or grape tomatoes or wedges tomatoes
 * 1 lemon, cut in half lengthwise and very thinly sliced (toss into salad for garnish/flavor)
 * 1 cup fresh mint leaves, roughly chopped
 * sticky rice

Directions
Prepare a batch of Thai sticky rice (aka Thai sweet rice) to serve with this salad. Note: if you're in a hurry or on a budget, you can leave out the scallions, cuke, tomatoes and lemon and this salad will retain its signature flavor.

Marinade

 * 1) Mix ingredients in a ziploc and let meat marinade from 2 – 24 hours in liquid.
 * 2) char grill or broil meat to medium rare, about 3 – 4 minutes per side.
 * 3) Let rest at least 10 minutes then slice very thin (¼" or less) against the grain.
 * 4) Use very good quality meat for this dish, you want it to be fork-tender and melt-in-your-mouth!.

Dressing

 * 1) Mix all dressing ingredients together 1+ hours before serving salad.
 * 2) Be sure to taste and make any necessary adjustments… dressing should be spicy, sour, salty and a just a wee bit sweet in that order) you may want to make extra dressing to spoon over the sticky rice.

Salad

 * 1) Pour half of dressing over the red onions, lemon and cuke in a large salad bowl and let them absorb the flavor, 15+ minutes.
 * 2) Add lettuce, tomatoes, scallions and mint along with the rest of the dressing.
 * 3) Toss the salad until all ingredients are very well coated and mixed.
 * 4) Dish salad onto plates and top with slices of cooked beef, make sure plenty of dressing is included in each serving.
 * 5) Add a serving of sticky rice to each plate.
 * 6) Serving suggestion very pretty to serve this salad on a bed of purple cabbage leaves.
 * 7) Perfect sticky rice soak 1-2 pounds of Thai sweet rice in lukewarm water in a large bowl for 3 hours- drain and reserve water to use in steaming.
 * 8) Line bottom of bamboo steamer (the stackable sort used for veggies and such) with parchment paper (or cheesecloth sprayed with PAM).
 * 9) Fill steamer with soaked rice and cover.
 * 10) Pour rice soaking water into wok or dutch oven, add some fresh water until approx 3" depth.
 * 11) Place steamer over water in pan, bring water to boil then reduce to strong simmer - don't let water cook away.
 * 12) Steam rice for approx 25 minutes, let sit an additional 5 minutes with lid on.
 * 13) To make toasted rice powder toast raw sweet rice in a sauté pan on top of stove just as you would sesame seeds - until very light golden brown.
 * 14) Use a coffee grinder, blender or food processor to grind to a fine consistency - i like mine fine as white sugar but any texture from couscous, cornmeal, flour, etc is just fine.
 * 15) Adds an interesting, nutty and essential flavor to the dressing.