Four Course Thai Feast

This is a four course dinner, with Smoked Garlic Lime Carrots, Mushroom Sesame Soba, Smoked Black Bean Garlic Beefsteak and Coconut Banana “Ice Cream” (in a separate post) for dessert.  (There is no dairy, so this is a kosher friendly meal.)  Prep consists primarily of chopping, soaking and marinating about an hour and a half before you wish to eat.  The recipes are listed separately, but all the marinating and soaking should start at about the same time.

You can grill the carrots and beef, but I prefer to smoke them.  You can achieve the same effect with a charcoal grill if you put the cover down and purposely let juices drip down onto the briquettes.  I own two of those stacked bullet shaped smokers with two grill racks and one has a space for a gas canister.  They were cheap.  (One I bought used for $5.00!)  The charcoal isn’t really that cheap, but I augment it with pinecones sometimes.  I try to grill as much as possible at one time – meat and vegetables – for at least two meals – to get my money’s worth.  

The photo above is of the leftovers, which I arranged as an attractive cold single course dinner!  (You'll have to forgive the wine being in the wrong place in the photo.  I'm still learning about food photography.)

Mushroom and Sesame Soba Ingredients

2 oz. dehydrated mushrooms (black tree fungus type or shitake)

1 medium onion

2 tbsp. peanut or other vegetable oil

8 oz. package buckwheat soba noodles

½ c. frozen spinach

1 tbsp. fish sauce

2 tbsp. soy sauce

2 tbsp. chili oil

2-3 tbsp. toasted sesame oil

2-3 tbsp. toasted sesame seeds

While the meat and carrots are marinating, also soak mushrooms in the same pot you will use to cook buckwheat soba noodles in later.  You can use black mushrooms (a curly tree fungus) or shitake, which may be easier to find, but which you will need to trim the stems off of after soaking). 

Chop 1 medium onion and saute’ in 1 tbsp. peanut oil.

An hour later, squeeze the water out of the mushrooms into the same pot you will use to cook the soba and turn the water back on to boil.  If you are using shitake, trim the stems off.  Move the mushrooms to a large bowl and douse liberally with (approximately 2 tbsp. each) of soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, toasted sesame seeds and chili oil.  Add about 1 tbsp. fish sauce.  By now the water is probably boiling.  Break the soba in half and add it to the pot.  Give it a stir, add a bit of inexpensive oil (peanut or other vegetable) and stir it again.  After 6 minutes of a rolling boil, add ½ c. frozen spinach to soba. Water will of course stop boiling.  Stir the noodles again.  When the water begins to boil again, drain the noodle/spinach mixture in a colander.  Then pour noodle/spinach mixture onto mushroom/sesame mixture and stir.  Taste it for seasonings before serving; this is very important because the mushrooms, fish sauce and soy sauce can vary tremendously in taste.  Today’s mushrooms were a surprise because they were pretty, but they were bland, so I poured on a lot more seasonings than usual. 

Garlic Lime Carrots Ingredients

5 lbs. carrots

juice of 2 ½ limes

1 tsp. each salt and garlic

2 tsp. each medium hot sauce and toasted sesame oil

Peel and slice carrots in half lengthwise.  Marinate in the lime juice mixed with salt, garlic, hot sauce and sesame oil about one hour. 

Black Bean Garlic Beefsteak ingredients:

3.5 lb steak (bottom round or other medium quality steak is ok)

Juice of ½ lime

2 heaping tbsp. Lee Kum Kee black bean garlic sauce

Marinate steaks one hour in the lime juice and black bean sauce. You can add another tablespoon of sauce if you like because it is pretty low in sugar, but do not substitute a high sugar sauce because it will burn.

After an hour is up, start your grill if it is the charcoal type because you’ll want at least 15 minutes for the lighter fluid and charcoal to burn off and settle down.   

As I said, one of my smokers I paid real money for (a Brinkman like the one below but not as clean), but the other was only $5.00.  I've seen smokers made of 50-gallon metal drums, trash cans and 2 old kettles like witches used in scary movies, one turned upside down on top of the other.  You can make a smoker yourself if you want.  You just have to fiddle with the fire and be patient.  Have a long thermometer to poke down in the rust hole if you use kettles or trash cans so you can keep an eye on the temperature.  And DO NOT USE the coils from the back of a refrigerator for the grilling rack (unless you're willing to risk not returning from a trip to the hospital). 

 

Method for cooking carrots and beefsteak together:  

Drain most of the liquid from the carrots.

Make sure you have two pairs of tongs and a very large clean platter (or two medium ones) for the cooked meat and carrots (microscopic parasites do hang onto used utensils and plates, so don’t reuse the same ones for cooked food that you used for raw food).  Also take oven mitts outside to protect your hands.  Forgive me if I’m overstating things – but I have been outside and have been in the middle of grilling and burned myself because I forgot my tongs or my gloves.  And I think I’ve got a lot of experience.  Also have some type of wire basket that can take a scorching.  I use a steamer basket that I never use for its original purpose, which is boiling pasta. 

Pour the carrots into the wire basket on one edge of the smoker.  They will lose a little juice into the briquettes below.  If you poured off almost all the liquid earlier, this won’t put out the fire, but will increase the smoke, which is good!  Close the lid of the grill.  Wait 5 minutes.  Lift the lid, stir the carrots.  Arrange the steaks around the basket, with the thickest closest to the center and the thinnest closest to the edge of the grill.  Close the lid again.  Check the temperature.  If the temperature is low, around 200 degrees, but you have a good smoke going, you will have a long wait, but some very tasty steaks.  If the temperature is very high, around 500, you will have to hang around very close by and you will have a lot less flavor.  I would shoot for about 250 or so and turning the steaks in about 10 minutes, then leaving them alone another 10 minutes.  Don’t cut the steaks to see if they are done.  Use a probe thermometer if you are unsure.  Rare is 120, medium 130, well, 140 degrees inside; they will cook more after you pull them off the smoker and leave them alone to rest ten minutes inside before cutting into them (as you must to let their juices and textures settle). 

The advice about temperatures is completely wrong if you are grilling with gas rather than smoking.  In that case, you want to use very high heat.  You will not get a smoky flavor, obviously, but you can get a nice, crispy texture on the outside of each piece of beef.  You will need to stir the carrots pretty frequently so they don’t scorch.