Vietnamese Lemongrass Beef Salad (Bun Bo Xao)

One of the most common Vietnamese dishes is some form of grilled, marinated beef served on, in, or at least near some rice noodles. Just like tex-mex food in Jim Gaffigan's words (tortillas with meat, cheese, or vegetables), bun bo xao is one such construction of beef with rice noodles and cilantro, and is on almost every Vietnamese menu other than at pho restaurants. I've made pho before, but have actually never made this dish until now. It turns out that not only is it somewhat simple, it's also incredibly delicious, and replicates the restaurant version almost identically.

I made this dish by merging a few different recipes, some coming from the very excellent book Vietnamese Street Food, by Tracey Lister and Andreas Pohl. The key components of the dish are the lemongrass marinated beef, the raw salad components, and the seasoning sauce, nuoc cham truyen thong.

Baby Kale Salad with Roasted Squash

This recipe is from the delicious New York City restaurant, Northern Spy.  I ate there a few years ago, and happened to notice that this random kale salad recipe pilfered from the internet was one of theirs. The salad did not disappoint, and made me miss spending time sampling the dishes of the excellent farm-to-table chefs in New York.  Crispy, crunchy, with a healthy dose of nuttiness from the roasted squash and toasted almonds, and tangy from the aged cheeses, this complex, filling salad was a huge hit at the dinner table, and could have held its own against the best made caesars or any of the roasted beet with goat cheese permutations.

I recommend you seek out baby kale for this salad, but if you can't find that try for one of the nicer kales mentioned in the recipe.  In a pinch, use regular kale, but blanch it for 60 seconds and then shock it in ice water to make it more palatable and bright.

Thai Bamboo Rice Salad

Strolling through a Whole Foods last year, I found a curious jar of green rice that I had never seen before.  Smelling faintly of jasmine rice but more earthy and perfumed, this curious infusion was known as bamboo rice.  This rice is apparently infused with the juice from young bamboo plants, giving it the vegetal notes as well as the green color.  We would have strolled on had we not found this recipe accompanying the rice, as we fortunately picked some up to try this out.

I highly recommend this rice salad, which was amazing as a side but could almost stand on its own if you were really avoiding protein for some reason.  Interestingly, I couldn't find this recipe on the Whole Foods website - it's some kind of mystery recipe that never appeared after I found the small card, so I'd like to post it here for all to see.

Thai Bamboo Rice Salad
Whole Foods

• 1 cup bamboo rice
• 1.5 cups coconut water
• Sea salt, to taste
• ¼ cup toasted unsweetened coconut
• 2 tbsp lime juice
• 2 tbsp seasoned rice vinegar
• ¼ cup peanut oil
• 4 green onions, sliced
• ¼ cup freshly torn mint
• ¼ cup freshly torn basil
• 1-2 tsp serrano chile, small dice
• Freshly ground black pepper
• ¼ cup chopped roasted peanuts
• 1 large cucumber, sliced into thin rounds

Combine rice with coconut water and a pinch of salt in a heavy-bottomed saucepan.  Bring to a boil over high heat, cover, reduce to a simmer and cook for 11-12 minutes.  Remove from heat and let stand, covered, for 5 minutes.  Fluff with a fork.  Transfer to a bowl and refrigerate to cool.

Preheat oven to 350 F.  Spread coconut on a baking sheet and bake for 4-5 minutes, stirring after 2 minutes, making sure it doesn’t burn.  Combine lime juice and vinegar in a bowl.  Whish in peanut oil.  When rice has cooled, combine with green onions, mint, basil and chile pepper.  Top with coconut and peanuts.  Serve on cucumber rounds, with a piece of fish if desired.

Brown Rice Salad with Crunchy Sprouts and Seeds

This recipe serves to highlight just how bad my picture-taking skills are.  While this was meant to be one of my flagship recipes, because it's so unique, healthy, and delicious, my pictures make this look a bit less than exciting.  And there was no opportunity to go back for another pass, because this disappeared within about a day, and with complete disregard for you, the viewing public.  Oh well, use your imagination of putting this on a bed of lettuce or something.

I found this recipe in a magazine with a number of other salads devoted to interesting grains.  This one was a natural first step, because I already had some cooked brown rice, a bunch of chives in need of a home, zucchini from the farmer's market, and a mountain of sprouts from my most recent sprout-growing adventures.  There really wasn't any excuse NOT to make this dish, and I'm glad I backed myself into this tasty corner.

Brown Rice Salad with Crunchy Sprouts and Seeds
Modified slightly from Bon Appétit, June 2012

• 3/4 cup (packed) chopped fresh chives
• 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1.5 tablespoons (or more) fresh lemon juice
• 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt plus more
• 1 1/2 cups mixed dried sprouted legumes (such as mung beans and lentils)
• 1 1/2 cups grated zucchini, lightly squeezed to remove liquid
• 1/2 cup cooked brown rice
• 2 scallions, thinly sliced
• 1/3 cup toasted salted sunflower seeds
• 1/3 cup toasted salted shelled pumpkin seeds (pepitas)
• 1/3 cup coarsely chopped roasted unsalted almonds
• Freshly ground black pepper

First, make the chive vinaigrette.  Purée chives, oil, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, and 1 teaspoon salt in a food processor until smooth. Strain chive vinaigrette through a fine-mesh sieve into a small bowl.

Get the chives, and puree them with olive oil, lemon juice, and salt to make a tasty vinaigrette dressing for this

If you're really worried about the bacterial content of your sprouts (and you probably shouldn't be if you made your own), cook them in a large pot of lightly salted boiling water until just tender, about 5 minutes, which I think is a terrible idea. But assuming you do, after cooking remove them from the heat and let stand, covered, for 3 minutes.  Rinse under cool water and drain them.  Or, my more preferred method - do nothing.  Just throw the sprouts in raw.  They will be much healthier and more delicious that way anyway.

Okay, ready?  Toss everything together.  That's it.  Season to taste with salt, pepper, and more lemon juice, if desired.

Warm German Potato Salad (Kartoffelsalat)

Ah, potatoes - those tasty little tubers that seem to be on every menu in the Western world, and which can stump Dan Quayle in a spelling bee.  While potatoes are originally from the Americas (Peru, to be exact), some cultures over in Europe have managed to do amazing things with them in a the few centuries that they've been cultivated there.  And I'm not talking about the Irish.  I'm talking about the Germans, who transformed the potato salad of the United States into something entirely different.

German potato salad is pretty much the opposite of American potato salad.  It's served warm.  It has only a thin sauce to it.  It is almost entirely vinegar-based, as opposed to mayonnaise or mustard.  And you can practically eat it as its own meal, since it almost always has meat right in the dish.  And bad news for some of you - this dish isn't meant for the devoutly Jewish, as it contains bacon.

I mashed up this recipe from a few different sources, then tinkered to get the consistency I wanted.  The result is from too many places to cite just one, but if you look really hard you should see the same few ingredients in different orders or with different ratios all over the internet.  But you're here reading this one, so just roll with it.


German Potato Salad (Kartoffel Salat)

• 3 pounds Yukon gold or red potatoes
• 1/4 pound thick-cut bacon
• 3/4 cup finely chopped onion (white, yellow, bottoms of a green onion, and/or red)
• 1/3 cup white vinegar
• 3/4 cup water
• 2 tbsp flour
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 tablespoon mustard seeds
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 3 green onions, tops, sliced thinly
• 2 tbsp parsley, chopped

Scrub potatoes and place in a large pot.  Add water until potatoes are submerged at least 1".  Boil the potatoes until they are cooked through, at least 20 minutes.  If you use Russets here, they will be mealy and gross.  Go with a waxier potato like a red or Yukon gold.  Drain potatoes and allow to chill for at least a few hours, or preferably overnight.  Once cooled, slice potatoes into 1/4" thick rounds and set aside.

Boil the potatoes the night before if you can.  Then assemble just before serving

If you want a little kick to your salad, place the mustard seeds in the cold water and let hang out for 10 minutes.  If not, just skip this step.  In a fairly large saute pan, cook bacon until crispy, and set aside.  Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of bacon grease from the pan.  Over medium heat, cook the onions until translucent, about 3-5 minutes.  I used the bottom of the green onion tops I would add later to complement red and yellow onions.

Saute your onion mix

Dissolve the flour in the water, and then add water, vinegar and mustard seeds, and deglaze the pan for a few seconds.  Add the salt, sugar, and flour, and stir to combine.  Now add the sliced potatoes to this and fold them into the sauce.  Once you have tossed this around a bit, added the parsley and green onions, and crumble the bacon and throw that in too.

Toss again to combine, and that's it!  Serve warm, and enjoy with whatever German food tickles your fancy.

It's bacon!

Buffalo Chicken Finger Salad with Blue Cheese Dressing

In college I lived on chicken wings.  Juicy, fatty, crispy little bits of deliciousness, covered in Buffalo wing sauce.  I was in the camp that wings should not be breaded - they should just be fried plain.  And yet somehow, I also liked 'boneless wings' served at the Wings Over X chain (insert multiple Northeastern cities for X) which, despite my proximity to Buffalo, seemed to take hold as an acceptable name and menu item.  A boneless wing?!  What the heck is that?  Do they mean a deboned wing, which would be a tiny lump of chicken skin, a whole bunch of fat, and about 0.1 ounces of actual meat?  Or perhaps a chicken finger, which is what it really was?  Oh well, you can't argue with people on things like this, although I frequently try.

'Boneless wings', AKA chicken fingers

Usually a conduit for various sauces, these 'boneless wings' were in reality heavily breaded chicken tenders, steeped in any of a number of different liquids or spice blends.  More often than not, the sauces were the best part, with tantalizing names like honey mustard, spicy teriyaki, and golden BBQ sticking in memory.  Trying to recreate these for me has been like trying to catch a butterfly in a tornado - you know you're probably close to your target, but you're pretty sure it's never going to happen.

I've decided it's time to crack this nut - both in how to make a good chicken finger, and how to make these dipping / tossing sauces.  As a start, I ran out and bought 40 pounds of chicken tenders.  Most of these have been frozen so I can time release their awesomeness.  But the first batch went towards my first chicken fingers attempt, and then into a standard (although excellent) Buffalo sauce recipe.  Though it wasn't the style I was shooting for, I liked these a lot, and they got incredible marks from my guests.  So I thought I would share them with all of you.  Note: these are NOT my New Year's double breaded wings, for the friends who are reading this and want to recreate them.  That recipe is still being tweaked, and will be posted shortly.


Buffalo Chicken Tender Salad with Blue Cheese Dressing

Serves 4

• 1/2 cup white flour
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon water
• 2 cups panko
• 10 chicken tenders
• at least 1 quart frying oil, either vegetable, canola, or peanut
• salt, in an easy to dispense shaker

• 1 large head lettuce, preferably butter or Romaine (or, if you're boring, iceberg)
• 1 large tomato, sliced
• 1/2 large red onion, sliced very thinly into rings
• 1 avocado, sliced
• 1/2 pound roasted asparagus
• 1 large carrot, shredded
• 1 medium cucumber, sliced
• 1/8 pound sharp cheddar cheese, grated

Before we even start, you should know that you need a few pieces of equipment to even consider this.  First, a heavy pot or electric fryer.  Second, a good frying thermometer or digital thermometer reading up to at least 400 F.  Third, a metal mesh 'spider' for removing and turning the chicken pieces.  And fourth, a decent amount of counter space.

First off, get yourself organized.  I have been frying many things for many years, and if you're not set up and ready to both get things into and out of your frying vessel, you will make mistakes, possibly including burning yourself and those around you.  This means clearing the counter, considering how you're going to pre-treat your chicken, and determining what happens to them afterwards.  For this recipe, I'm going with a standard three-phase breading, so I laid that out on one side of the pot, and then had my drain plate and seasonings ready on the other side of the pot.  Sanitary, efficient, and workable by two people - smashing.

The 'raw' side of the house

The 'cooked' side of the house.

Now, consider your vessel.  Notice that I didn't say your fryer, even though I do have a pretty epic fryer.  You CAN buy a fancy electric number that precisely controls the temperature.  But if you just don't have the space, a heavy pot at least 3 times deeper than the oil level you plan to use will be just great.  Why so deep? Because of a few things - first, the oil will expand when you heat it.  Second, the oil level will rise when you put things in.  Third, this is going to bubble and splatter, and the taller the walls of the pot, the less mess you will end up with.

Note the vast amount of space I have left in the pot.  I actually used so little oil that I was really pan-frying these, and I had to flip them part way through cooking.

Finally, consider your breading method and sauces.  I mentioned the three-phase.  What is that?  It's a very common method for breading meats (and vegetables - consider eggplant Parmesan) consisting of flour, an egg wash, and then breadcrumbs.  Here I use panko, a delicious coarse Japanese bread crumb made by pushing stale bread through a series of mesh screens.  Highly recommended if you can get a big bag cheaply from the Asian grocery store.  Also of note, I seasoned my flour slightly with some cayenne pepper, salt, and black pepper, but only just a little.  A lot of that gets wasted anyway since you don't use all the flour, so I would recommend seasoning the meat directly.  For the egg wash, take your eggs and the water and beat together to form a uniform consistency.  Arrange in the order shown in the picture above.

To prepare, heat your oil to 350 F, get your sauce ready on the other end (recipe follows), and bread half of your tenders.  Toss chicken in the flour, try to let the egg wash drip off when you dunk them in there for a second, then roll lightly but thoroughly in the panko (the chicken, not you).  You can either put them directly in the oil, or finish the lot one or two at at time, letting them sit on a rack for a second while you get them all ready.

Once ready, put your chicken in the oil, and boost the flame so the oil temperature doesn't drop too much.  You're looking to stay in the 325 - 350 range the whole time.  If you're deep frying, just give the tenders a nudge every once in a while so they cook evenly.  If pan-frying (not fully submerged), turn them when the edges seem browned and the fingers start bubbling a bit more slowly.  Just turn them once.  Keep your eye on the temperature, making sure you don't get too high or too low.

The completed and draining fingers, before saucing

When the fingers are done, remove to a plate lined with paper towels or a rack over a baking sheet, and season with salt immediately.  Place each finger in the Buffalo sauce and toss to coat.  Then serve over your salad, which I leave to you to create.

A Buffalo chicken finger salad with homemade dressing.

Buffalo Wing Sauce

• 8 tablespoons Louisiana hot sauce (Frank's is the brand used in Buffalo)
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter or margarine
• 1 1/2 tablespoons white vinegar
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• salt to taste

To prepare, melt butter in microwave or on stovetop.  Stir ingredients together in a large bowl.

 

Here's the sauce, with a couple of fingers going for a quick swim.  It doesn't look healthy, but that's because it isn't.  But man, is it good.

Blue Cheese Dressing

• 1/2 cup regular mayonnaise
• 1/3 cup sour cream
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 3 oz blue cheese
• 1/2 tablespoon wine vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• few grinds black pepper
• 1/2 tsp sugar (optional, to taste)

To prepare, stir ingredients together in a large bowl.  Will keep in the fridge for at least a week.

Spinach Salad with Roasted Beets and Bacon Vinaigrette

I found a version of this online somewhere, and modified ratios slightly to get the proportions I wanted.  The result was delicious, and although distinctly non-vegetarian, it was a very hearty salad.  If you haven't tried roasted beets before, I highly recommend giving this dish a shot as your first taste of them.  And if you don't like them, hey, at least there's bacon!

Roasted beets are delicious, and the golden ones look pretty cool too

Spinach and Beet Salad with Bacon Vinaigrette, Goat Cheese, and Hazelnuts

Serves 6 as an appetizer, 3 as a main course

• 2 large beets
• 8 cups spinach
• ½ cup crumbled goat cheese
• ½ cup toasted hazelnuts, chopped
• 5 ounces bacon, cut into ¼ inch cubes
• 1/4 cup good quality olive oil
• 2 tbsp good quality balsamic vinegar
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Salt to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Wash and trim beets then wrap each beet individually in aluminum foil.  Roast the beets until a knife slides through, about 40 to 60 minutes depending on the size.  Once cool enough to handle, slip off the skins and cut into a ¾” dice.  Place in a bowl and set aside with the spinach, goat cheese, and hazelnuts.

To roast beets, just trim the ends, wrap in foil, and bake.  Then peel them once cooled slightly.

Cube into whatever size you like

Cook the bacon in a small sauté pan over medium heat in a bit of the olive oil until the bacon has rendered its fat and is slightly crisp.  Remove bacon to a plate and pour off all but 2 tbsp of bacon fat from the pan, then add the remaining olive oil and vinegar and season to taste with salt and pepper.  Whisk lightly to incorporate and continue to heat the oils lightly.  Toss the beets with a bit of the dressing and then the spinach, making sure you place all of the bacon on the spinach.  You may not need all the dressing – don’t use too much, or this will have a greasy feel to it.  Serve on individual plates with spinach first, topped with the beets, crumbled goat cheese, and hazelnuts.

Thai Green Papaya Salad (Som Tam)

If you've never tried it, papaya salad is a refreshing (but spicy) first course served in Thailand.  It's got something for everyone's food allergy, too - peanuts, shrimp, and cilantro.  So be careful who you serve this to.  And don't worry if you can't find shrimp paste, since I didn't feel that it added much to the dish, plus it smells... strange.

The recipe provides a fun exercise in taste testing, wherein you get to adjust at the end for sweetness, saltiness, and tartness using three different ingredients.  So even if you abandoned your dreams of culinary school, you can still practice working out each group of your taste buds and feel like a chef for a fleeting moment.

And if you need even MORE reasons to make this, well, let me tell you about papaya.  Did you know that it is a digestive aid?  That it's high in vitamins B and C, dietary fiber, and other minerals?  That it's being studied as a suppressor of liver cancer, and as a contraceptive?  That it has antifungal properties, and its leaves are used to treat malaria?  Or my favorite bizarre 'fact':

"Harrison Ford was treated for a ruptured disc incurred during filming of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom by papain (made from papaya) injections."  -Wikipedia, citing the book Harrison Ford: The Films

This recipe was taken practically verbatim from About.com's Thai food page, which is a really good source of information if you're looking to branch out.

Papaya salad - a good way to wake up your taste buds

Thai Green Papaya Salad (Som Tam)
by Darlene Schmidt

• 1/2 tsp. shrimp paste (if vegetarian, substitute 1/2 Tbsp. Thai golden mountain sauce OR 1/2 Tbsp. soy sauce)
• 2 Tbsp. good-tasting oil, such as olive
• 2 Tbsp. fish sauce OR 2+1/2 Tbsp. soy sauce for vegetarians
• 3 Tbsp. lime juice
• 1/2 to 1 Tbsp. liquid honey, to taste
• 1 small green papaya, OR 1/2 large (your papaya should be very firm, the flesh white to light orange in color)
• 1/2 cup roasted peanuts, or cashews
• 1-2 cups bean sprouts
• 1 to 2 tomatoes, cut into long thin strips, or 1/2 pound cherry tomatoes
• 1 red chili, minced (seeds removed if you prefer a milder salad)
• 3 spring onions, sliced into long matchstick-like pieces
• 1/2 cup fresh basil, roughly chopped if leaves are large
• handful of fresh cilantro

This is what papaya looks like.  I believe the seeds are black when it's ripe

Most of the remaining ingredients.  The shrimp paste is particularly scary

I used a couple of cherry tomato varieties rather than large tomatoes

Prepare the dressing by mixing together the first five ingredients together in a cup. Make sure shrimp paste (if using) and honey dissolve fully.  Set aside.

Peel the green papaya, then slice it in half and remove all the seeds.  Using the largest grater you have, grate the papaya.  If you have a mandoline, things will be a lot more consistent and will go a lot faster, plus you get the opportunity to get stitches.  Place in a large bowl.

Papaya, after a run through the mandoline.  Note the absence of fingertips from the mandoline blade

Shred the green onions to the same shape as the papaya

Add the sliced tomato, spring onion, chili, bean sprouts, and most of the basil.  Add the dressing, tossing to combine.  Add only as much dressing as you think will be necessary - this makes a bit more than I thought should have been in there, and as a result it became too watery by the end.

Add the peanuts / cashews (I prefer to chop, but you can leave them whole).  Toss again, and taste.  If not sweet enough, add a little more honey.  If not salty enough, add a little more fish sauce.  If too sweet or salty, add more lime juice.  If you prefer it spicier, add more fresh-cut chili or dried crushed chili.

To serve, scoop the salad into individual bowls or onto a serving platter.  Sprinkle with remaining basil leaves plus fresh coriander, and serve immediately.

Salmon with Thai Rice Salad

Based on the somewhat artery-clogging food I've been eating lately (see my upcoming pot pie posting), I wanted something simple and healthy for dinner tonight.  This broiled salmon and Thai rice salad comes together quickly and has very few ingredients - fish, rice, some vegetables, and that's just about it.  Not a bad idea for a light weeknight meal, and you can't beat the freshness of the rice salad, which is more like a slaw than anything else.  The crispness of the cucumber and the pungent cilantro and green onion balanced the strength of the salmon perfectly, and the chilled vegetables and rice made me wish it was summer and I was eating outside.

The only magic here is broiling the fish.  Though not too complicated if you've done it before, you can easily ruin dinner if you do this wrong.  First of all, find your broiler.  For those of you who don't cook, this is probably the drawer at the bottom of your oven where you've been storing your baking sheets, although in some ovens (mostly electric) there is a broiler rack at the top of the oven by the element, rather than underneath by the fire.  Wherever it is, it's always somewhere that food can cook directly through intense radiant heat.  I like to broil fish skin side down first to cook it most of the way through, then flip it over to crisp the skin for the last few minutes.  Keep a close eye on it, because burnt fish is one of the worst smells to deal with in the kitchen, not to mention a senseless waste of expensive protein.

If you can, shell out for decent salmon - it needs to stand up on its own

Easy Salmon with Thai Rice Salad

• 1 1/2 cups long-grain rice
• 3 tablespoons lime juice (from about 2 limes)
• 3 tablespoons Asian fish sauce (nam pla or nuoc mam)
• 2 tablespoons cooking oil
• 3 1/2 teaspoons sugar
• Pinch cayenne
• 1 cucumber, peeled, halved lengthwise, seeded, and cut into 1/4-inch dice
• 3 carrots, grated
• 4 scallions including green tops, chopped
• 6 tablespoons chopped cilantro
• 2 pounds skinless center-cut salmon fillet, cut into 4 pieces
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper

The setup - one of my more healthy meals recently

Stir the rice into a medium pot of boiling, salted water and cook until just done, about 10 minutes. Drain. Rinse with cold water and drain thoroughly.

In a large glass or stainless-steel bowl, combine the lime juice, fish sauce, 1 tablespoon of the oil, the sugar, and cayenne. Let sit for about 5 minutes. Stir in the rice, cucumber, carrots, scallions, and cilantro.

The finished rice salad.

Heat the broiler. Oil a broiler pan or baking sheet. Coat the salmon with the remaining 1 tablespoon oil and sprinkle with the salt and pepper. Put the salmon on the pan. Broil until just barely done (the fish should still be translucent in the center), about 5 minutes for a 1-inch-thick fillet. Put the rice salad on plates and top with the salmon.

After broiling the salmon, the skin should start to get nice and crispy.  Discard it if you like before serving - it's home to many of the nutrients, but also the toxins, in the fish.

The Meat Goes On

And on, and on.  I probably should have thought this through, because now I have 4 pounds of beef that's going bad, with increasingly less desire to eat it.  Last night was a decent steak salad, but I think I was forcing it.  The avocado was probably the best part of the whole experience.

I tried a new approach to the slicing, making sure to orient the roast so I was slicing against the grain.  This makes the resulting slices much more tender, since you're not gnawing on long muscle bits but rather a whole bunch of shorter fibers.  And if you didn't want to think about meat that way, sorry for ruining the mystique, but it's true.  Another good discovery was that if you look behind the blade to see what's coming out, you can control the speed a lot better, and get much more even slices that don't fall apart in the blade.  So I got a big tub of fresh sliced meat, ready to be made into sandwiches.  Now all I need is motivation to eat them.

Thin-cut, delicious looking homemade roast beef.  And this is just half of it!

Slices can get pretty thin once you know how to work the slicer

Anyway, salad recipe below.

Steak Salad
 

• 1/4 pound top round, sliced 1/4" thick and cut into strips
• 2 cups spring greens
• 1/2 tomato
• 1/2 avocado
• 1/4 red onion
• 1/2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 tbsp balsamic vinegar (good stuff, please - otherwise you're not getting the full experience)
• Sea salt and cracked black pepper

Prepare the greens, onion, and tomato.  Make sure the lettuce is dry, or else the salad dressing won't stick, and it's going to be a mess.  Slice avocado thinly just before plating, so it won't brown before you can get at it.

Toss greens, onion, and tomato with salt, pepper, oil and balsamic in a large bowl.  I find that the best way to do this is by hand, but only if nobody's watching.  A small bowl will result in greens on the table and on your shirt, so go big.  If you add the salt and dressing too early, the greens may wilt or lose their fresh taste - always dress your salad within a couple minutes of plating.

To serve, assemble the plate with all ingredients as you see fit.  Be creative!  Fan the avocado, or stand things up, or put everything in separate piles, or in a big tower.  If salads aren't fun to prepare, they're not going to be fun to eat, so enjoy it or you'll just be another one of those somber lettuce eaters, like a giraffe or the lonesome triceratops.

Steak salad.  Not bad, but I would normally prefer a different cut from top round here