Gordon Ramsay’s spicy beef salad is a steak salad from Ultimate Cookery Course (2012). Sirloin steaks are seared for a few minutes a side, rested, then sliced thick over carrot ribbons, radishes, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, baby gem and mint. A Thai-style dressing of garlic, chili, palm sugar, fish sauce and lime ties it together, with toasted peanuts on top. It serves 4 and takes about 25 minutes.
He cooks it on camera in his spicy beef salad video on YouTube, and the steak is where he spends his time. The sirloins come out of the fridge 20 minutes early and go into a smoking hot pan. Then he holds each one on its edge until the strip of fat has melted away.
The salad side is just as deliberate. Thin carrot ribbons take the dressing better than chunks, he says. And he only adds a couple of spoonfuls at first, since you can always add more but you can’t take it away. For a lighter plate with the same lime, fish sauce and palm sugar, there’s his pounded papaya salad from Thailand.
Gordon Ramsay’s Spicy Beef Salad
Course: SaladsCuisine: AsianDifficulty: Easy4
15
minutes10
370
kcalGordon Ramsay’s spicy beef salad recipe from Ultimate Cookery Course (2012): seared sirloin steak sliced over a crunchy mint salad with a garlic, chili, palm sugar, fish sauce and lime dressing. These ingredients make a spicy sirloin steak salad for 4.
Ingredients
- For the salad:
2 beef sirloin steaks, 200 to 250g (7 to 9 oz) each
olive oil, for frying
2 carrots, trimmed and peeled
6 radishes, trimmed and finely sliced
200g (7 oz) cherry tomatoes, halved
a bunch of mint, leaves only, shredded
1 small banana shallot, peeled and finely sliced
3 scallions, trimmed and shredded
½ large cucumber, trimmed, peeled, seeded and sliced
2 baby gem lettuces, shredded
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 tablespoons skinned peanuts, to garnish
- For the Thai-style dressing:
1 garlic clove, peeled and roughly chopped
1 red chili, seeded and chopped
2 teaspoons grated palm sugar or palm sugar paste (or golden superfine sugar)
2 to 3 tablespoons fish sauce, to taste
juice of 1 to 2 limes
Directions
- Sear the steaks: Season the steaks generously on both sides, pushing the seasoning into the meat. Add a dash of oil to a hot pan and fry them over high heat for 2 to 3 minutes on each side for medium rare. Hold the fat side against the pan to render the fat, then rest the steaks with any cooking juices poured on top.
- Make the dressing: Grind the garlic and chili to a paste in a mortar with a pinch of salt. Stir in the sugar, fish sauce and lime juice. Taste, add a little more lime if it needs it, and set aside.
- Toss the salad: Cut the carrots into ribbons with a vegetable peeler. Put them in a bowl with the radishes, tomatoes, mint, shallot, scallions, cucumber and lettuce. Add 4 to 6 tablespoons of the dressing and mix well.
- Toast the peanuts: Toast them with a pinch of salt in a clean dry pan for a few minutes, then chop roughly.
- Serve: Slice the steak thickly at an angle and lay it on top of the salad. Scatter over the peanuts, drizzle with the rest of the dressing and serve right away.
Notes
- Calories are about 370 a serving. Most of them come from the steak and the peanuts.
FAQs
How long do I cook the steak for a spicy steak salad?
In the video he gives it 2½ minutes a side and turns it only once. Then he presses it with two fingers: if it feels rare, he takes it off, because it keeps cooking to medium rare while it rests.
The pan matters as much as the timer. If the steaks don’t sizzle loudly the second they go in, he says the pan isn’t hot enough yet.
Why does he slice the steak so thick?
He says thin slices go stone cold on the salad and lose their juices. Thick slices stay warm and juicy against the cold, crunchy vegetables.
He also trims off the melted strip of fat before slicing. It has done its job of keeping the steak moist, and he doesn’t want it in the salad.
Why a banana shallot instead of an onion?
The book has a note on this. Banana shallots are sweet and full of flavor when they’re raw, with none of the harshness of a big Spanish onion.
In the video he calls them incredibly mellow. They’re the long, pale-skinned shallots, sometimes sold as echalion shallots.
Does he make a steak salad with arugula (rocket)?
Yes, a beef tagliata in Bread Street Kitchen (2016). He says it’s traditionally rare beef with arugula and Parmesan, but his version puts 4 griddled sirloins on ribbons of griddled zucchini and eggplant.
It’s finished with toasted pine nuts, semi-dried tomatoes, basil, aged balsamic and shaved Parmesan, so it’s a Mediterranean steak and arugula salad rather than a spicy one. For a sweet and sour one from his Lucky Cat restaurant, there’s his Thai beef salad with tamarind.
Is there a beef salad without chili?
His seared beef salad in Sunday Lunch (2006), page 49, inspired by steak tartare. Chunks of beef fillet are seared for 3 to 4 minutes, cooled, cut into small cubes and tossed with a Dijon, honey and soy dressing, mint and parsley.
Dress it at the very last minute. He warns that the vinegar in the dressing will “cook” the beef and discolour the herbs if it sits.
Zaytouna Studio Team is the kitchen team behind Chef Ramsay Recipes. We cook Gordon Ramsay’s recipes from his cookbooks and videos in a home kitchen and write them up for yours, with US and metric measurements.