Cambodian marinated beef with a black pepper and lime dipping sauce

Hello chefs 

It's time for another rant, but in this case not so much as there is not that much background to this dish apart from the fact that I really liked the sound and look of it. It is from a book called "Rick Stein's Far Eastern Odyssey". Thinking about it, it's very rare for me to try a recipe from a cook book, if there is no complimenting pictures to show how good the meal can turn out because there is nothing better than finding a recipe with an accompanying picture that instantly makes my mouth water and this recipe did exactly that. In fact, in this book there are plenty of recipes that make you want to start cooking there and then and that is maybe the reason why I wanted it as soon as I saw it. If you read the post "The reason I cook", then you will know that my first influences were from the Eastern part of the world and to have a book with 150 different recipes from that part of the world from over 7 different countries made this a must have for me.

What you need:

700g rump or sirloin beef steak

For the marinade:

1 medium hot red chilli, roughly chopped

15g garlic, roughly chopped

25g peeled ginger, roughly chopped

juice of half a lime

1 tbsp palm sugar

3 tbsp dark soy sauce

2 tbsp oyster sauce 

1 tbsp fish sauce

2 tbsp tomato ketchup

1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

3 tbsp of oil

For the dipping sauce:

juice of half a lime

2tsp ground black pepper

What to do:

First of all you will need to trim the beef off all fat and cut into 2.5-3cm pieces. Put all the ingredients for the marinade into a food processor and blend together until smooth. Transfer to a bowl and stir in the beef, leave to marinade for 20 minutes.

To make the dipping sauce is very easy indeed: All you need to do is mix the lime juice and pepper with quarter of a tsp of salt and that's it. Now it's time to cook the beef. Being an Eastern dish, you guessed it, you need a wok or a large deep frying pan. Heat half the oil over a high heat, take half the beef and fry for 3 mins or until nicely browned on the outside - the beef will be rare, if you want well done beef then cook for 6-8 mins. Now put the beef onto a warm plate, then repeat with the remaining oil and beef. If you buy this book or happen to own it, then you will notice that I am not serving it like the recipe as I think it would be more like a starter. So I just served it with a large portion of coriander rice and put a drizzle of the dipping sauce over it. 

This is the first recipe that I have prepared and cooked from this book and it was delicious. I would definitely recommend "Rick Stein's Far Eastern Odyssey" to anyone as there are lots of recipes in this book to get your taste buds going.

Happy cooking and enjoy.