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Bo tai chanh banh mi
Makes 4 Sandwiches Starters and mains
Ingredients
- 800g good-quality fillet of beef
- handful of salted peanuts
- groundnut oil or other oil for deep-frying
- 6 shallots, thinly sliced
- 2 banh mi (baguettes)
- butter
- bunch each of fresh coriander, fresh mint and fresh Thai basil
- handful of prawn crackers, crushed
- Maggi celery soy sauce (optional)
- mayonnaise
For the marinade
- juice of 4 limes
- 100ml fish sauce
- 4tbsp palm sugar (or granulated sugar)
- 3 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1tbsp grated fresh ginger
- 1-2 bird’s eye chillies, thinly sliced, plus extra to serve (optional)
Method
To make it easier to slice, place the beef fillet in the freezer for at least 1 hour.
For the marinade, mix together the lime juice, fish sauce, sugar, garlic, ginger and chilli, then stir until the sugar has dissolved. Remove the meat from the freezer and slice, against the grain, as thinly as possible. Pour over three- quarters of the marinade and leave to marinate for 15 minutes. Crush the peanuts coarsely in a pestle and mortar. Heat the oil to 135C/275F and deep-fry the shallots until they start to colour, 5-10 minutes. Remove the shallots from the pan, increase the heat to 180C/350F and deep-fry the shallots again for a couple of seconds until super-crispy.
Sprinkle with salt and drain on kitchen paper.
Assemble the sandwich! Shake the beef a little to remove any excess marinade and reserve. Scrape out a bit of the crumb, and crisp the baguettes up for a short while in the oven. Butter the bottom half and pile on a disgustingly large amount of fresh herbs as a base.
Add the meat and finish off with some more herbs, some of the saved marinade, crushed peanuts, fried shallots, crushed prawn crackers, Maggi sauce, mayo and perhaps even more chilli.
Add the top half of the bread and serve.
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