Cambodian Lime Cured Beef Salad

I made this from a recipe in Gordon Ramsay's Great Escape Southeast Asia book. The beef is cured in lime juice, garlic, fish sauce, palm sugar and lemon grass, which leaves it tender and refreshingly tangy. I chose to serve it uncooked, as the lime juice "cooks" it anyway, but you can give it a quick sear if you prefer. The salad consists of cucumber, green beans, radish, capsicum, Thai basil, Vietnamese mint, shallot, chilli and baby Cos lettuce, and is garnished (second photo) with crushed roasted peanuts.

This was a very satisfying salad with plenty of fresh flavours to set your tastebuds alight. My favourite way to eat it is to take a lettuce leaf and wrap it around some of the other ingredients, like a spring-roll, much more fun than a knife and fork!