This colourful and spicy beef salad will leave a warm glow even if the British weather doesn’t!
Let’s be honest, we have a tendency to play safe with salads and the results can often be limp and uninspiring. Here, we take a Thai theme for a hot summer salad that couples the satisfying succulence of seared rump steak with the light astringency of lime and a good honest hit of spice from the jalapeno chillies.
If we were to be true to the Thai roots of this recipe, we’d be using birds eye chillies rather than jalapeno. However, the difference on the Scoville scale (the measurement for the intensity of heat from a given chilli) between birds eye at 100,000 SHU versus jalapeno at 5000 SHU is significant and if you or your guests are not used to that kind of heat – your meal will not be an enjoyable experiece.
Preparation: 10 minutes
Serves 4
Ingredients
For the beef
- 2 tbls olive oil
- 500g rump steak
- 100g cashew nuts
- 3 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
- 3cm cubed piece of ginger, peeled and grated
- 1 red onion, thinly sliced
- 2 jalapeno chillies, sliced
- zest and juice of 2 limes
- 1 tbsp oyster sauce
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- 2 tsp honey
For the salad
- 1/2 Chinese lettuce, washed and shredded
- 1/2 cucumber, cut into bite-sized crudités
- 1 red pepper, deseeded and sliced
- 1 yellow pepper, deseeded and sliced
Garnish with slices of lime
Spicy beef salad method
1) Arrange the salad ingredients in four separate bowls and season well with salt and pepper.
2) Heat the oil in a wok or frying pan until it is smoking hot. Add the ginger, onion and chilli and stir fry for 3-4 minutes.
3) Add the beef, cashews and garlic and cook to your taste before adding the rest of the ingredients. Stir fry until hot but take care not to burn the garlic.
4) Spoon the beef on top of the salad and serve immediately.
If you enjoyed Spicy beef salad, you’ll find more ideas for healthy summer salads on our Food and Drink Channel.
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