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Recipe: Lemongrass Beef and Rice Noodle Salad Bowl
⛄Our seasonal collaboration with The Everyday French Chef continues!⛄
The Everyday French Chef is a culinary website written by Meg Bortin – and features delicious, easy to make French recipes.
This recipe is a fun healthy summer dish hailing from Vietnam, perfect for hot weather and adventurous eaters. The Chartreuse mint that is used in the recipe is a balcony/garden must-have – it’s incredible in savory dishes such as Bo Bun, but works well for desserts and makes a powerful herbal infusion as well.
Discover Meg’s delicate recipe below and don’t hesitate to start your botanical journey on the way!
Click here to order your plant d’Avenir mint plants and have them delivered to your home!
Lemongrass beef and rice noodle salad bowl
Bo bun consists of chopped lettuce topped by rice vermicelli, cucumber, marinated carrots, fresh mint or Thai basil, crushed peanuts and lemongrass beef, bathed in a tangy sauce. It often includes mini fried spring rolls (egg rolls), known over here as nems.
Other versions abound — with shrimp, chicken or pork (or no meat for vegetarians), with cabbage, bean sprouts, what have you. But today we’ll stick to the basic version, with beef.
This is a recipe that takes time, but you can proceed at your own pace and much can be done in advance. All you need to do at the last minute is to stir-fry the beef and heat up the nems. Important: Buy the nems in advance from an Asian grocery or restaurant.
The quantities below will serve 2 people.
12 ounces (330 g) lean steak
2 stalks lemongrass
2 cloves garlic
4 tbsp. nuoc mam or another Asian fish sauce
2 tsp. + 1 tbsp. white sugar
4 tsp. vegetable oil, such as sunflower or safflower (not olive oil)
1 medium carrot
2 tbsp. rice vinegar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cucumber
several large lettuce leaves (Boston lettuce, batavia, oak leaf, romaine)
several sprigs fresh herbs: mint, Thai basil
2 tbsp. roasted salted peanuts
3 tbsp. raw sugar (cassonnade or demerara)
1 lime
3 tbsp. water
1 red bird’s eye pepper or 1 tsp. sambal oelek (Asian hot sauce)
1 medium onion
7 ounces (200 g) rice vermicelli
4 nems (mini fried spring rolls), purchased ahead of time at an Asian shop or restaurant
This recipe proceeds by steps: marinating the beef, marinating the carrots, making the sauce, preparing the other ingredients, cooking the noodles, pre-assembling the bowls, heating the nems, cooking the beef and final assembly.
1) Marinating the beef
Slice the beef thinly — this is most easily accomplished if you first put the steak in the freezer for about 10 minutes. Transfer to a bowl. Chop off the bottom and the top half of the lemongrass stalks, slice what remains in half lengthwise, remove the tough outer leaves and mince the tender center very finely. Add to the bowl. Peel and mince 1 clove of garlic. Add to the bowl, along with 1 tbsp. nuoc mam, 2 tsp. white sugar and 2 tsp. oil. Stir. Allow to marinate while you proceed with the recipe.
2) Marinating the carrots
Peel the carrot, chop into matchsticks, transfer to a bowl. Add 1/2 tsp. salt, 1 tbsp. rice vinegar and 1 tbsp. white sugar. Stir. Allow to marinate while you proceed with the recipe.
3) Making the sauce
Dissolve 3 tbsp. raw sugar in 1 tbsp. rice vinegar and 2 tbsp. freshly squeezed lime juice. Add 3 tbsp. nuoc mam and 3 tbsp. water. Stir well to blend. Add about half of a bird’s eye pepper, finely chopped, or 1 tsp. Asian hot sauce. Peel and finely mince 1 clove garlic and add. Taste and adjust as necessary. The flavors should be sweet, sour, salty and spicy.
4) Preparing the other ingredients
Keep the following ingredients in separate bowls until it’s time to assemble the salad. Rinse the cucumber, chop off a piece about 4″ (10 cm) long, peel off the skin in strips to create a striped effect, slice lengthwise, chop into bite-sized bits. Rinse the lettuce and shred into bite-sized pieces, enough to make two handfuls. Strip the leaves from the fresh herb sprigs. Place the peanuts on a board and crush by rolling over them with a rolling pin.
5) Cooking the noodles
Cook the noodles in boiling salted water according to the instructions on the packet. Tip into a colander and rinse under cold water.
6 / Pre-assembling the bowls
Transfer the lettuce to two bowls. Add the noodles. Scatter with the fresh herbs. Add little mounds of carrots, cucumber and peanuts. You may now pause the recipe until nearly ready to serve.
7) Heating the nems and cooking the beef
About 10 minutes before serving, preheat the oven to 180 C (350 F, gas mark 6). Place the nems on a baking pan lined with parchment paper. Peel the onion, chop into quarters and slice finely. Heat 2 tsp. of oil to sizzling in a skillet. When the skillet is very hot, add the onions and stir-fry for about 5 minutes, until wilted and starting to brown. While the onions are cooking, transfer the nems to the hot oven — they need to heat for about 5 minutes. Now add the beef to the skillet and stir-fry for 2-3 minutes, until browned all over. Take the beef off the heat and remove the nems from the oven.
8) Final assembly
Add the beef to the bowls. Cut the nems in three and add to the bowls. Spoon on the sauce.
Your bo bun is ready. Serve and enjoy!
