Beef Lemongrass noodle salad

There's always a new restaurant or two popping up in Quebec City thanks to the overflowing gastronomic curiosity especially post-pandemic. One of them is a quick-bite shop that sells Poké bowls and Vietnamien sandwich (Banh Mi), situated conveniently right next to my favorite boba place. So, inevitably I got myself one to eat with my boba, obvi. 

Banh Mi is a submarine style sandwich with short baguette bread filled with sliced meats, vegetables, and condiment. Typical Banh Mi has pork belly slice or ham as protein ingredient, but this shop offers something different, it uses minced beef lemongrass as its filling. I'm not a big fan of sandwiches, but this Banh Mi was so good. Their beef lemongrass filling is juicy and flavourful, I just can't get enough of it! I can imagine that lemongrass beef can good with rice, or even as a protein choice for noodle salad. 

Today's recipe is to make the beef lemongrass, but instead using it to make sandwich filling, I use it in noodle salad, and honestly I like it even better. 

Beef marinade  

2 tbsp fish sauce Nuoc Nam (or any South East Asia fish sauce)

1 tbsp brown sugar

4 garlic cloves, minced

2 lemongrass, chopped 

2 shallots, minced

1 tsp coriander powder

1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper

1 lb sirloin/ribeye steak sliced thin into stripes or you can also use beef skirt steak

Dipping sauce 

4 tbsp brown sugar

3 tbsp rice vinegar

4 tbsp lime juice from 2 limes

4 tbsp fish sauce Nuoc Nam 

3 cloves garlic 

1 inch peeled ginger, minced

3 thai chilli, sliced 

Salad 

Carrots, julienned

Cucumber, remove seeds, julienned 

Rice vermicelli, prepare according instruction on the packaging

Crushed peanut

Fried shallot

Basil leaves

Oil to stir-fry 

Cooking Step: 

1. Marinade. Combine fish sauce, brown sugar, minced garlic cloves, chopped lemongrass, minced shallots, coriander powder, and ground pepper, stir until brown sugar is dissolve. Add beef stripes let marinate in a refrigerator overnight or at least 30 minutes. 
2. Dipping sauce. In a small bowl, combine all the ingredients for dipping sauce, stir to dissolve brown sugar. Let sit refrigerated overnight to let the flavours melds. 
3. Stir-fry meat. Heat the oil in a wok on high heat. Make sure the wok is really hot it's almost smoking. Add beef in batches and stir fry until the beef turns light brown and cooked. Cook the beef in small batches to avoid the meat releases too much liquid and end up boiling. You can also use Korean bbq pan to brown the meat. 
4. Salad. Line serving bowls with rice vermicelli, carrots, and cucumber. Top the bowl with stir-fried beef. Sprinkle crushed peanut and fried shallot, and drizzle generously with dipping sauce without turning it into a soup. Decorate with basil leaves. 

Et voila!