Serves: 4
Prep time: One hour and a half
For the beef:
Ingredients
- 1 flank steak (or two New York strip steaks), sliced thinly
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- 2 tablespoons cilantro, chopped
- 4 tablespoons lime juice
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon fish sauce (available in the Asian food section of most grocery stores)
- 1 tablespoon palm sugar, or dark brown sugar
- ½ teaspoon ground pepper
- 1 tablespoon canola oil
For the salad:
Ingredients
- 4 cups unripe papaya (available at Asian grocery stores, or Whole Foods)
- 4 ounces green beans or Chinese long beans, cut into 2-inch lengths
- 1 cup cherry or grape tomatoes, cut in half
- 1 red chili pepper – more if you like it hot
- ½ cup roasted peanuts plus 2 tablespoons peanuts for garnish
For the salad dressing:
Ingredients
- 4 tablespoons lime juice
- 3 tablespoons fish sauce
- 2 tablespoons palm sugar or dark brown sugar
For serving:
Ingredients
- 3 cups steamed white rice
Directions
- Mix together minced garlic, cilantro, lime juice, fish sauce, soy sauce, sugar, pepper, and oil for the marinade.
- Marinate beef in mixture for at least one hour.
- Make the salad dressing by mixing lime juice, fish sauce and sugar together. Set aside.
- Peel papaya and cut into shreds by holding it in your hand and chopping lengthwise in a shredding motion. (Papaya will come out in strands.)
- Stop slicing when you get to the seeds; shred all four sides. Or, feed papaya meat into the grater attachment of your food processor, or use a hand grater to shred the papaya until you have four cups of it. Set aside.
- Cook the rice according to the directions on the rice container and set aside.
- Using a pestle, grind garlic cloves in a large mixing bowl, adding the chili, tomatoes, and beans, and giving them a good bash until they’re bruised.
- If you don’t have a pestle, work the mixture vigorously with both hands, kneading it to bring out the flavors. Add 2 tablespoons of the salad dressing, and add papaya to the mixture, a handful at a time.
- Continue to pound, or knead, mixture until papaya is softened, then mix until it is well combined.
- Add rest of dressing, and ½ cup of roasted peanuts. Transfer to a serving bowl.
- Garnish with rest of roasted peanuts.
- Cook the marinated beef slices on a hot grill for two minutes on each side.
- Serve beef on the side of the papaya salad, with the steamed white rice.
