Vietnamese Beef and Vermicelli Salad

Vietnamese Beef and Vermicelli Salad

I have been pretty busy though G-d knows not with doing the housework that I need to do. There are piles of washed, dried and folded clothes lying around waiting to be returned to their drawers and more piles of dirty ones waiting to be washed. But at my age I should be allowed to procrastinate especially when I have a new small obsession.

The other day, while reading through a few blogs, I came across a remark that the Jews do not cook their meat in milk. I know (one of my oldest friends being Jewish) that they do not eat pork, prawns, fish without scales...but why can't they mix meat and milk? That set me on a few hours of research on the subject - few hours because one answer led to another question (e.g. why were Jews moneylenders?) and so on and so like the Hub said, "don't you have anything better to do with your time?" Apparently not.

I won't bore you with the details, but the reason I thought was quite sweet : one shouldn't cook a kid in its mother's milk. So they can't mix milk and meat (e.g. beef, lamb) and if they eat meat and cheese, they can only do so at a few hours' interval (which, if you ask me, like asking your non-Jewish neighbour to manipulate your switches during the Sabbath, is quite hypocritical).

Anyway that's religion for you. My mom's religion has a thing about cows, so she couldn't eat it. And on the 1st and 15th day of the Lunar month, she goes vegetarian. My religion? Twice a year I go crazy. Schlussverkauf/Saldi/Sale/Soldes/Rebajas, I speak in tongues on those days. Like nowadays.

Having spent too much time on such things, I had to churn out dinner rather quickly. The breadwinner does expect bread to be on the table on time. Beef was on the mind so beef turned up where the bread should be : Spicy Vietnamese Beef and Vermicelli Salad.

Basically grilled Beef steak sliced and marinated in a paste (lemongrass, galangal, shallots, garlic, brown sugar, rice wine, lime juice and zest, fish sauce, chilli...).


Vermicelli (mung bean or rice) quickly cooked, drained, rinsed with cold water, topped with raw greens (e.g. bean sprouts, julienned carrots, salad leaves, cucumber, tomatoes, shallots, fresh mint, coriander leaves...)

and dressed in the sauce that I usually make for my Imperial Nems.