Smoked Beef Salad

I was walking to class yesterday, when a strong familiar smell forced itself into my nostrils and I couldn't help it but to just hasten my steps to where the smell was coming from.  Kak Yam, our school canteen operator, was smoking some beef (daging salai) for yet another of her catering orders!  And I made my own order of a few pieces of the smoked beef seeing how fresh and tender they were.

Now, it is traditional for the citizens of the state of Negeri Sembilan to cook this smoked beef in one way, and one way only, and that is in thick coconut gravy, as per my previous entry on smoked beef.  However, today I decided to try something different with the smoked beef and that is to turn it into a salad or 'kerabu'.  And what a salad it turned out to be because of the multitude of tastes that were in it.  In short, my critics loved it!

300g smoked beef, thinly sliced (I got rib eye!)
4 sweet shallots, sliced

2 green tomatoes, de-seeded and sliced

2 cloves garlic, chopped

10 birds eye chili , chopped

3 tbs fish sauce

2 tbs soft brown sugar

4 spring onions, sliced

a bunch of mint leaves, roughly torn

Juice of 1 large lime

Mix the fish sauce, brown sugar and lime juice until sugar dissolves.  Mix in the chili and garlic.  Then stir in the smoked beef and leave to macerate for about twenty minutes.  Mix all the vegetables and the macerated smoked beef plus the marinade at the very last minute before serving so that the mint and spring onions don't become soggy.  Enjoy!