Lemongrass Beef Noodle Salad

Savoured for it's fresh, fragrant and subtly citrus flavour, lemongrass is a penetrating - yet non-overpowering - component of many South East Asian dishes. If you enjoy Vietnamese or Thai food, you'll recognise the flavour straight away.

This noodle salad is loosely inspired by one of my favourite Vietnamese dishes: bun bo xao - stir-fried lemongrass beef served over room-temperature vermicelli rice noodles. Slices of steak beef (e.g. sirloin, skirt, scotch) are normally used, however I had some leftover beef mince in the fridge so adapted the idea to suit.

The salad aspect is also flexible - slices of cucumber, bean sprouts, shredded crispy lettuce, peanuts, crispy fried shallots, and fresh herbs, such as cilantro, basil, mint, small perilla (shiso) leaves are typical; but I used what I had, including thin slices of green pepper and mixed seeds, providing alternative elements of freshness and texture.

What is mandatory, however, are the cooled rice noodles, the Vietnamese dipping sauce/salad dressing, and the lemongrass, garlic and fish sauce beef marinade. 

Lemongrass Beef Noodle Salad

5-Spice Beef and Carrot Dumplings

I've been craving dumplings. A few days ago I tried making pierogi, the Polish version, which I filled with a potato, bacon, kale and onion mix pepped up by some toasted cumin and fennel seeds. I wasn't entirely happy with how the dough came out (I'll try this recipe next time) but the overall result was still pretty delicious.

Today, I made Chinese-style dumplings. As I'm currently out of range from an Asian grocer, I thought I'd try my hand at making the wrappers from scratch. I found this recipe and was stoked with how easy it was to make. For my first attempt, they turned out okay but I'll need to work on rolling them out. They say to never blame your tools but on this occasion, I regret using my ridged vintage chappati rolling pin. It's important to roll these out right and the ridges didn't allow me to roll the edges out thinly so that when pressed together, the dumpling wrapper isn't too thick.

I'm still pleased with how they came out though, especially the filling, but I'll be giving the homemade dumplings wrappers another attempt soon.

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5-spice Beef and Carrot Dumplings makes 36 with above dumpling wrapper recipe

If you're not fussed about making the dumpling wrappers from scratch, visit your local Asian supermarket and find the pre-made jiao zi dumpling wrappers in the freezer. You may be faced with two types/shapes: circular or square. I prefer the circular ones as the square wrappers are actually for wontons and are made with egg (instead of just flour and water). They would work fine, but the square shape creates 'excess' pastry ideal for deep-fried wontons, for the extra crispiness, or in soup, for aesthetics and the egg noodle-like texture.

Fresh/defrosted pre-made dumpling wrappers

Filling
300 g quality beef mince
1 medium sized carrot, grated
1 tsp five spice powder
1 Tbsp ginger, finely chopped or grated
1 clove garlic, finely chopped or minced
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp salt
1 dried Thai bird's eye chilli, crushed/chopped including seeds (or 1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes)
1 green onion/scallion, sliced finely from tip to root
1 tsp sesame oil (optional)
1 Tbsp sesame seeds (optional)

A Simple Homemade Burger

From top to bottom:

Split bakery bun top
With inner hollowed out, toasted
A smear of Dijon mustard
Iceberg lettuce
Baked portobello mushroom
Grilled zucchini lengths
Slices of tomato
Plum and tamarillo chutney
(Lovely with rosemary, below)
Melted cheddar cheese on
A 100% homemade beef pattie
Medium-rare
(No egg or breadcrumbs necessary)
Seasoned with lots of salt and pepper,
Dijon mustard and chopped fresh rosemary,
Tomato sauce spread over a
Split bakery bun bottom
Inner removed, toasted
With a side of oven-baked kumara fries,
seasoned with salt and pepper.

Cooking on the Cuff

April has been a busy month.  Road trips, camping, canoeing, sightseeing, multiple deadlines at work and a friend's wedding have left little energy else for anything other than just enjoying those moments.  I've had less time than I'd like for writing but plenty for thinking.  Much time driving in the car, or sitting in a canoe, was spent in comfortable silence with my boyfriend as he thought about the things he saw from his seat, amongst other things, while I happily got lost in thought about food.  From devising what we were going to eat for our next meal to what I'd like to write about here.

The Whanganui River

Breakfast at Whangaparoa Bay, SH35 (The Pacific Coast Highway)

For example, I got to thinking: one of my favourite things about these weekends away was definitely cooking on the cuff. Without all the tools and ingredients available at home, and only the selected items that I'd deemed useful enough to bring along.  After previous camping trips, we had a list of things that we knew we would need: a good knife, pan, mandoline, tongs, can opener, oil, salt and black peppercorns (ground with two flat stones found somewhere in the South Island). Chickpea flour was also on the list this time.  Being off the grid for some of those weekends required forward-thinking when it came to what we would want to eat; and what we would want to eat would have to work with that set of tools and little refrigeration, if any.

After all that, the meals of greatest success were: 

• Zucchini fritters; then,
• Zucchini fritter, carrot and peanut butter sandwiches;
• Beetroot, chickpea and feta salad (with Steak);
• 2 Bean and Beef Nachos; and,
• Spaghetti Carbonara  

Dinner at Sponge Bay, Gisborne

So simple and relatively quick, I was proud to prepare these meals even if there was no-one to share it with other than ourselves.  Cooking away from home need not be limited to instant-anythings.  (However if it's instant noodles, with an egg stirred through towards the end of cooking, I could be okay with that.)