Baking
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Vietnamese braised beef with lemongrass, star anise and a peanut dust
- Slow Cooking
- Special Occasion
The peanut dust is what caught my eye – such a simple but fantastic idea. Easy to do, in advance, yet adds that little wow factor.
This is one of the best slow cooker recipes I have – based on a recipe from the Good Food section in the SMH paper by Karen Martini, yet I make it a little simpler as the flavours are all still so strong and delicious.
I like to follow this dish with my ginger puddings for a special dinner party.
Serves 6. DF.GF is fish sauce right brand. Freezes well.
Pictured: Vietnamese braised beef with lemongrass, star anise and a peanut dust
Ingredients
- 1.6kg beef chuck, in 2cm-3cm dice
- A generous pinch of saffron
- Vegetable or light olive oil
- 3 sticks lemongrass, white part only
- 4 long red chillies
- 8cm piece ginger
- 5 purple eschalots
- 6 garlic cloves
- 3 star anise
- 1 tsp five-spice powder
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- 1 x 400g tin diced tomatoes
- 4 tbsp fish sauce
- 3 tbsp sugar
- 1 large daikon (Japanese radish), peeled and cut in 4cm rounds, or a bunch of radish trimmed and kept whole.
- To serve – jasmine rice, coriander leaves, lime wedges and peanut dust (see recipe below)
- Peanut dust
- 6 tbsp unsalted, dry-roasted peanuts
- 4 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted in a dry pan (watch carefully, they burn quickly)
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp salt flakes
- 2 tbsp crispy fried shallots (from Asian grocers and sometimes in supermarkets)
- Make the peanut dust - in a mortar and pestle or small food processor, grind the peanuts, sesame seeds, sugar and salt together, then stir through the crispy shallots.
- Season the beef with sea salt flakes and toss with the saffron and a little oil.
- Roughly chop the lemongrass, chillies, ginger, eschalots and garlic, add to a food processor and process to a paste.
Method
In a large pot, fry the paste in a little oil about 3 minutes or till fragrant, add the beef and stir to seal the meat.
Add the star anise, five spice, cinnamon, tomatoes, fish sauce, sugar and half a teaspoon of salt. Stir. Add two litres of water to just cover the beef.
Simmer gently for at least three hours or until the beef is tender. Alternatively place all ingredients in a slow cooker on low for 8 hours. Can freeze at this stage and follow the remainder of the recipe once warmed up again getting ready to finish and serve. The daikon/radish can get a little too soft if cooked too long.
Add the daikon and cook for a further 30 minutes, until the daikon is tender and the sauce reduced.
If freezing leftovers, separate the daikon into a zip lock bag to reheat quickly and carefully at the end of rewarming the dish to not cook it any further as it can get a little soft – or even remove and add fresh daikon for half an hour as per previous notes.
Sprinkle with the peanut dust.
Serve with rice, coriander and lime.
Dietary preferences
- Gluten-Free with ingredient checks
- Dairy-Free with ingredient checks
