Seared beef and beansprouts in spicy lime dressing

---

This dish is similar to an Indo-Chinese dish, Goi Bo and variation of it that are found in Cambodia, Thailand and Laos. Because the beef is only cooked for a short time, it's worth using high quality beef such as fillet for this dish.

Ingredients for seared beef and beansprouts in a spicy lime dressing

Ingredients

• 450 g (1 lb) beef fillet steak, cut into 2.5 cm (1") steaks
• 115 g (4 oz) beansprouts
• 4 or 5 button mushrooms
• Big handful of basil leaves
• Big handful of mint leaves
• 1 lime, quartered for garnish
• Peanut oil for frying
• For the marinade
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• Zest of 2 limes
• Juice of 2 limes
• 2 tablespoons nuoc mam
• 2 tablespoons jaggery
• 1 lemongrass stalk, bruised and chopped
• 2 small hot red chillies, deseeded and sliced into rings
• 3 spring onions, sliced on the diagonal

Method

The marinade

1. Whisk the lime juice and zest, jaggery and nuoc mam until the jaggery dissolves
2. (if the jaggery is solid and hard, first crush it with the end of a rolling pin)
3. Mix in the crushed garlic, chillies and lemongrass

The beef

1. In a hot pan with a little oil, sear the fillets for 2 minutes per side, remove and allow to cool
2. Cut the meat into thin slices
3. Add to the marinade an refrigerate for at least 2 hours
4. Blanch the beansprouts for 1 minutes in just boiled water. Allow to cool then arrange in a large serving bowl with the mint, basil and the chopped spring onions.
5. After 2 hours, drain excess liquid from the meat and arrange in the bowl with the beansprouts

Serving suggestions

Garnish with lime slices and serve with coconut rice

Chef's notes

I also added some raw sliced button mushrooms to the beansprouts because I happened to have some left over.