Recipes, Beef Recipes

Crying tiger beef noodles

I have absolutely no bloody idea why this dish is called this. I’m assuming because traditionally the amount of dried chilli it has in it can seriously mess you up. Either that or tigers hate the taste of it? I’ve also heard people call it by the name waterfall beef, due to how the juices that flow from the beef like a waterfall are used as part of the dressing to give a fuller, richer flavour.

Crying tiger beef noodles

Recipe by Sebby Holmes

Serves 2

Ingredients

Shop the ingredients

Directions

  1. Start by making the dressing. In a pestle and mortar combine the palm sugar, fish sauce, lime juice, roasted rice, dried chilli and the tamarind. Grind in a pestle and mortar until all ingredients are as one. Have a taste – it should be salty, smoky, a little sweet and nutty from the roasted rice. Adjust in the direction that you like, if you want.
  2. Next, cook the steak. Allow the meat to get to room temperature before cooking. Coat the steak in the soft butter and sprinkle with sea salt, gently massaging the seasoning into the flesh. In a very hot pan, grill pan or a BBQ cook the steak, remember it is important for the steak to be quite rare, even blue as to retain as much blood and flavour as possible to later mix with the dressing and finish the dish.
  3. Cook for 1-2 minutes on either side, dependent on the thickness of the steak and then remove and allow to rest for 5 minutes in a warm place. Next, slice the steak across the grain of the meat into bite-sized pieces, roughly 1 cm thick each so they melt in the mouth.
  4. Finally plate up. Pour the steak and all the juices on the chopping board into a mixing bowl, add the dressing and therice noodles and then toss and stir thoroughly, making sure all the noodles have been coated and seasoned. Plate the noodles upon the iceberg lettuce leaves in neat piles, making sure to have some of the lovely steak visible on the top. The lettuce adds a welcome fresh crunch to this otherwise soft dish.
  5. Garnish with a sprinkle of toasted rice powder, if you have it, for added texture, serve with chopsticks and napkins to mop up the tears.

Notes

  1. Any flash fry cut of steak that you prefer is fine to use, however the rich offal flavour of bavette or onglet is ideal for this dish.
  2. Pour boiling water over them to cover and leave for 8-10 minutes to soften, stir occasionally, refresh in cold water and place to one side ready for stir-frying.
  3. Toast the rice on a medium heat in a dry pan until nutty and golden brown and then powdered in a pestle and mortar or spice grinder.
  4. Toast chillies in a dry pan until darkened slightly and crisp, then powdered in a pestle and mortar or a spice grinder (more if you like your spice, less if you don’t)

Sebby is a writer, food enthusiast and acclaimed chef who enjoys connecting with people, sharing recipes and spreading his love for Thai cuisine. His best-selling cook book ‘Cook Thai’ has further affirmed this path for him as an influencer of Thai cookery. Sebby discovered his taste for Thai-food during a tour of Asia in 2008, and since then hasn’t looked back. He worked his way up to sous chef position at ‘The Begging Bowl’, before heading the kitchen for the launch of ‘The Smoking Goat’, Soho, one of the most acclaimed openings of 2015. Sebby decided at the ripe age of 26 it was time to go solo and launched Thai restaurant 'Farang' without taking any outside investment. He built his team from scratch, and within a year Farang had received a Michelin Bib Gourmand and was listed in the top hundred restaurants by Restaurant magazine.