CAMP RECIPE: Thai Beef Salad, Yum Nua
There’s never a right or wrong way. Especially with food. We’re all so fixated on this notion of authenticity that it almost blinds us from actually enjoying meals. If the food is delicious, and if it has all the right hints and notes of the culture it derived from, it’s authentic because the cook made it that way. A banh mi bowl isn’t ever authentic, although it has the potential to be delicious. The word banh mi literally translates to bread. So if there’s no bread, you can’t have a banh mi. Suck it down gentrified hipster Vietnamese joints!
Cooking any kind of ethnic food will forever be tricky. You have to somehow take the very key ingredients that make it distinctive, make it your own, and also make it delicious. This Thai beef salad is in no way authentic in the very traditional sense, but I’d like to say when you eat it, sure damn well tastes that way.
INGREDIENTS:
Serves 2
Prep time: 7 min
Cooking time: 10 min
1 romaine lettuce
1 red onion
1 tomato
2 cucumber
Mint
Cilantro
2 tbsp non salted peanuts
1 rib eye beef steak (youʼre camping, might as well indulge a little!)
1/2 cup fish sauce
1/2 cup lime juice
1/4 cup sugar
chili flakes to taste
DIRECTIONS:
In a cast iron pan, sear the beef on both sides so thereʼs a nice crispy crust. Cook to your preference of doneness.
The hardest part of making Thai beef salad while out in the bush is locating fish sauce. Any asian grocery store should have it in stock. If youʼre lucky enough to be in a cosmopolitan city before you hit the bush, some big box grocery stores should have a bottle of fish sauce in stock in the ethnic aisles.
For the salad dressing, have one part fish sauce, 2 parts lemon juice, 1/2 part sugar/sweetener of choice, and chili flakes to your preference. Thai food in general normally has good spicy kick to it so Iʼd recommend having at least a good bit of heat.
Cut and slice vegetables to your liking for a salad. Slice beef into edible pieces and place on top of the vegetables. Garnish with crushed unsalted peanuts, dress, toss together, and enjoy.
I find that I have this strange attraction towards foreign occupation food. It hits all the spots; resourceful, soulful, and extremely delicious. Okinawa taco rice is one of those dishes. This dish originated from the American occupation of Japan after World War 2. The small island of Okinawa flooded with an influx of US military bases, and with it, American soldiers. These Americans weren’t used to the taste of Japanese food like we are today. Instead, they craved the taste of home. And for many of these soldiers, it was Mexican food. Local restaurant owners wanted to capitalize on this food vacuum and thus, taco rice was born.