LimeCake

I’ll just come right out and say it: I never used to cook Asian food with a recipe by a guai lo. Call me rigid, but I was always wary of a Westerner cooking Asian food – “was” being the operative word.

Yet, that’s exactly what this dish is about. Neil Perry is almost revered in Australia and I really like eating at his restaurant, Rockpool, in Melbourne. Then I saw a Neil Perry recipe on Chubby Hubby. The method of coating the beef in kecap manis (a thick, sweet Indonesian sauce) and then grilling it, was completely foreign to me.

Strangely though, why wouldn’t it make sense? If you can schmear barbeque sauce on meat before grilling, the same idea applies here, especially because the sugar content is just as high in kecap manis and provides for delicious caramelisation on the meat.

The spicy-sour-salty sauce tastes just like the ubiquitous Thai table sauce, nam pla prik, and is a wonderful complement to the ‘sweetness’ of the beef.

My days of being a stickler (read: tight ass) for Asian-recipes-by-Asians-only are gone. If anything, I think these particular recipes are ingeniously conceived and out of the box. They certainly help me broaden my otherwise traditional ways of using Asian ingredients.

Grilled Beef with Spicy Asian Dipping Sauce (from Neil Perry at Food & Wine)

serves 1

1 tablespoons peanut oil

1 tablespoon kecap manis

1 strip of sirloin (about 200g)

Salt and freshly ground pepper

3 tablespoons Asian fish sauce

3 tablespoons fresh lime juice

1 tablespoon Asian red pepper flakes or crushed red pepper

1 tablespoon dark brown sugar

2 teaspoons finely chopped cilantro

1 medium shallot, thinly sliced

1. Light a grill. In a small glass dish, mix the peanut oil with the kecap manis. Season the steak with salt and pepper, add it to the dish and turn to coat. Let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes (I covered it with plastic wrap and marinated it for 2 hours).
2. In a small bowl, mix the fish sauce with the lime juice, red pepper flakes, brown sugar, cilantro and shallot. ( I did this in a small jar, like Chubby Hubby suggests)
3. Grill the steak over moderately high heat, turning once, until medium-rare, about 6 minutes. Transfer to a cutting board and let rest for 5 minutes. Thinly slice the steak across the grain and serve with the sauce on the side.

You might also like

Kor Moo Yang – Thai Grilled Pork Neck

Grilled Flatbread with Mozzarella, Artichoke and Arugula

Red Dragon Sauce with Cold Noodles