Thai Beef Lettuce Wraps (Yum Nua)
Thai Beef Lettuce Wraps (Yum Nua)
One of my all time favorite dishes is a Yum Nua salad. The first place I ever had this (my all-time favorite Thai restuarant) Thai Thai in Sunrise, Florida calls this a Tiger’s Tear Salad. I have seen in other restaurants both a Tiger’s Tear Salad and a Yum Nua Salad so Tiger’s Tear is open to some interpretation. Yum Nua is a wonderful blend of fresh ingredients, grilled beef, and wonderful Thai spices. My mouth is watering as I write this and it is breakfast time.
Yum Nua remained a bit of a mystery to me for many years until I finally set my mind to learning how to make it. I was shocked to learn how easy it was and in fact how easy many Thai dishes are to make. Since the lettuce wrap part pretty much takes the place of the salad, I thought how great would it be to fill it with the rest of it with Yum Nua. Yum Nua ingredients are usually cut up so that each item (beef, cucumber, lettuce, tomato, etc.) must be eaten individually, which doesn’t work for lettuce wraps. So instead of grilling a steak, we are going to use ground sirloin and we will dice the veggies nice and small.
Salad
- 1 lb Ground Sirloin (any ground beef will work, but sirloin is the same as steak and it tends to produce very little grease while still maintaining a steak like flavor)
- 1 English (hot house) Cucumber (any cucumber will do I just prefer hot house cukes)
- 2 medium Tomatoes chopped (you can also use grape tomatoes quartered)
- 1 bunch Fresh Cilantro
- 1 medium Red Onion
- 1 head Romain or Bibb Lettuce (washed and drained, pat dry if necessary)
Dressing
- 4 to 8 tbs Fresh Lime Juice (about 3 small or 2 medium sized limes)
- 8 tbs Fish Sauce (sometimes available in the ethnic section of your supermarket, definitely available at any asian grocer)
- 2-4 Thai Chili Peppers (found at most asian grocers. Can also use serrano peppers they work just as well)
- Thai Crushed Pepper (Regular crushed red pepper works too, but does have a slightly different flavor)
Salad
- Thoroughly wash all the vegetables.
Season the ground sirloin with salt and pepper.
Brown the ground sirloin in a skillet over medium-high (7 on my stove) heat. Break up with a spatula or spoon while it is cooking. You want the ground beef to be pretty small to fill the lettuce wraps. When the meat is browned remove it from the heat. Drain away any/all grease so you end up with fairly dry meat. Allow to cool.
Optionally Peel the cucumber. Slice the Cucumber in half or quarters and remove the seeds. Slice thin long ways and then cut into half inch segments so you end up with a bunch of small pieces of cucumber. Put in a large bowl.
Dice the onion. For this dish I prefer thinner slices and a slightly longer chop, but a fine chop works just as well. Add to the large bowl
Cut the Tomatos in half and remove all the seeds (this keeps the mixture from becoming overly juicy). Slice and then dice the tomato so that you have a bunch of small pieces of tomato. Add to the large bowl.
Rough Chop the Cilantro removing any large stems. Add to bowl.
Once cooled (it will still be warm, you just don’t want to add it hot because it will begin to cook your veggies) add meat to bowl.
Separate lettuce into individual wrap sized leaves and serve with mixture.
Dressing
- In a smaller bowl combine the sugar, the fish sauce and 4 Tbs of Lime Juice (you may need to add more later).
Finely slice the peppers across the pepper so you end up with little tiny circles (if you use a serano or jalapeno, slice them long ways in half or quarters first) and add to the bowl along with 1/2 tsp of the Thai crushed pepper. This stuff is hot so start out slow. I end up adding about a whole tsp to 2 tsp if I am feeling particularly adventurous. But I repeat, this stuff if HOT!
With a fork or a whisk, rapidly stir the sauce.
All fish sauces are not created equal. Depending on brand some are stronger than others. Give it a little taste. It will be very salty but you want to make sure you taste a good mixture of lime and salt. If it tastes very musky or you don’t taste any lime at all add a couple more Tbs of lime juice until you get a good blend. Generally you want two parts fish sauce one part lime sauce, but I have had it up as high as equal parts depending on how strong the fish sauce is. Also gauge the heat at this point. If you want it hotter, add some more crushed pepper. If it is too hot add some more fish sauce and lime juice.
Pour dressing mixture into large bowl coating the meat and veggies. Toss mixture so that you end up with a good mixture of all the ingredients and everything is covered in the dressing.
Most often my mixture does not make it out of the bowl and into anything nice before my family starts to eat this stuff.
While this recipe sounds complicated it goes together very fast and it really is easy to make. This takes 30 minutes or less to make and while it has a lot of ingredients is fairly inexpensive to make.
Note: Fish Sauce lasts a long time so don’t think that you will need to go buy a new bottle everytime you want to make this. Crushed Thai peppers also last a long time. In fact I think the longer they sit the hotter that stuff gets.
If you would like a good recipe for making a real Yum Nua Salad along with a video showing you how to make it…click here. Note: If you follow this recipe/video, I feel she overcooks the steak. If you use a good lean steak like a sirloin and cut it on the biased you are going to want the meat about medium rare, that is how I find this salad the best. It still tastes good with over cooked meat, but it is best with medium rare. I would not recommend rare with a tougher cut like sirloin, but might work ok if you used a rib-eye with the fat trimmed or a tenderloin cut.