Asian Beef with Basil

Rating: 5 out of 5 – Incredible flavour in a straight-forward recipe.

Thank goodness for challenges and blogging events like these. With so many things on my plate (the plate that seems to be on auto-refill – I’m sure everyone knows the feeling!), it’s these challenges that keep me motivated and focused on creating in my kitchen, in order to create on this space.

My initial thought was that this dish looked like many other dishes I’ve made, so while I definitely thought I’d like it, it didn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary or new to our kitchen.

For a surprisingly lengthy ingredients list, however, the method was still quite straight-forward. Get a nice cut of beef chuck, let it marinate in the spiced lemongrass and garlic marinade, stew some veggies in a Dutch Oven, add the meat, stew for a while longer, and voilà! You have a delicious topping for some rice noodles.

THE RESULTS

Admittedly, I only let the beef stew for 45 minutes, and not the 1 hour and 45 minutes the recipe called for. A girl’s only got so much time, ya know? So rather than eating at 11pm, I opted to take my chances and finish things off when I did, staving off our long-day-at-work hunger in the process. I can only imagine the dish being that much more tender with the extra time, but honestly, it was amazing as it was: absolutely packed with an incredible depth and breadth of flavour.

I hadn’t worked with much star anise before, either, so it was nice to have the excuse to buy a supply of the stuff for the pantry. 

Have I ever mentioned my love of basil? Probably. But when I used to live in places where I’d walk to get my groceries, I’d intentionally put my basil purchase in my shoulder bag so that I could smell its wonderful, peppery aroma all the way home. It was an instant mood-enhancer! There are few dishes I make at home that I couldn’t sneak some fresh basil into, so when the recipe calls for it, I’m pretty happy to comply.

Basil love. A most sincere one.

Sadly, I never seem to learn to take my contacts out BEFORE I cut chillies. I’m hopeful that someday I will learn this lesson.

It might not look like much – butthat flavour!

Cover Recipe

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