Crispy Asian Beef Salad

I love a good pulled meat as well as anything that can be slow cooked in the oven (or slow cooker) so when one of my lovely followers sent me a message about recreating a lovely Crispy Asian Beef Salad she had recently eaten in a restaurant, I knew I would be giving it a whirl fairly quickly. The result was amazing, the beef is absolutely packed with flavour and the smell as its cooking is out of this world.

The best thing about this dish is you can leave the beef to cook while you go about your day (or if you are using the slow cooker, while you are out at work). Then when you get home there isn’t too much left to do other than a bit of crisping up and salad prep!

For a ‘salad’ this may seem a little high in points but this is because the beef brisket itself is a fairly pointy meat. Because this is a salad I wanted the meat portion to be generous so you were left feeling full and satisfied. If you wanted to share the meat portions out further, it would bring the points down a little more.

The recipe for the beef below makes 8 portions and when I made this I froze four for another day. The salad as listed below only makes 4 portions (so you can make the meal for 4 or make 2 portions for dinner and 2 for lunch the next day).

The beef in this salad would also be amazing in a noodle soup or even some steamed buns so the recipe for both of these will be coming soon!

POINTS AND NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION 

Serves 8 – per serving =11 points or 277 cals, 10.0g fat, 15.6g carbs, 30.8g protein

Ingredients

For the beef (makes 8 portions)

2 onions, roughly chopped

6 cloves of garlic, crushed

50g ginger, peeled and finely grated

2 beef stock cubes made up with 500ml boiling water

2 tbsp honey

100ml Shaoxing rice wine

2 tbsp each light and dark soy sauce

1 tsp each Chinese 5 spice, ground cumin and chilli flakes

1kg beef brisket, raw

Low calorie cooking spray

For the salad (makes 4 portions)

1 bag of salad leaves

1 carrot, peeled into strips

1 cucumber, peeled into strips

16 cherry tomatoes, halved

4 spring onions, sliced into rounds

1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped (optional)

Large handful coriander, roughly chopped

10g unsalted peanuts, crushed

1 lime, halved

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 130°C (fan).
2. Take a frying pan, spray with low-calorie cooking spray and add the onion. Fry for 3–4 minutes until it starts to soften (add a little water if the pan gets dry). Add the garlic and ginger and fry for another minute, then add the beef stock, 1 tablespoon honey, the rice wine, dark and light soy sauces and spices. Heat for another minute and then take off the heat.
3. Remove the string from the beef and place the beef into a large roasting dish (unrolled). Add the sauce from the frying pan. Cover the tin with baking paper, then a layer of tin foil so it’s sealed (this will keep all of the moisture inside the roasting dish).
4. Pop in the oven for 2½ hours. After this time, uncover the meat, turn it over and baste in the juices. Add the cover back on the dish and bake in the oven for another 2½ hours.
5. After 5 hours, remove the beef from the oven and turn the oven up to 180°C (fan). Pour the juices from the roasting dish into a frying pan and place over a high heat. Bubble for 10–15 minutes until the juices reduce by half.
6. Add two ladles of the sauce on top of the beef and drizzle over the rest of the honey. Place the beef back in the oven for 15–20 minutes until the top starts to go nice and crispy, then remove the beef from the oven and shred with two forks. Mix through the rest of the reduced sauce.
7. While the beef is crisping up, you can get on with making the salad. Put the salad leaves in a large bowl with the carrot, cucumber and tomatoes. Add half of the spring onions, chilli, if using, coriander and peanuts to the bowl. Dress with the juice of half the lime and toss together.
8. Take the other half of the spring onions, chilli, coriander and peanuts and mix together (you can chop together into a finer crumb if you fancy).
9. Add the pulled beef to the salad bowl and then top with the peanut crumb. Finish by drizzling the beef with the juice of the remaining lime half

Tip – If cooking in a slow cooker, add the onion, garlic and ginger to the slow cooker, then the beef (string removed and unrolled) and finally the rest of the beef ingredients (using only half the honey). Pop the lid on and cook on Low for 8 hours until the beef is soft and easily shreds apart. Once cooked, carry on with the recipe from step 5 or, if you don’t fancy the crispy bits, just shred the beef with two forks inside the sauce in the slow cooker.