Vietnamese Grilled Steak and Cabbage Salad

One of Claire's favorite foods is stir-fry: the kind with well-marinated meat, a few vegetables, and a bit of sauce: Asian-American food at its finest. So when I saw this recipe come up, I knew it would be popular because of the marinade and the ingredients. Unfortunately, Claire was invited to a friend's house for dinner the night I was planning to make this recipe. "That's OK," she shrugged, "I'll eat it for breakfast the next day."

 Look at this beautiful meat.  It's "onglet" or hangar steak, lovingly prepared by my butcher. And though he probably would have shuddered in horror,  I went ahead and marinated it in soy sauce and lime and ginger and garlic and sesame oil, and then cut up my vegetables.

The green cabbage was not looking very appealing at the market last week, so red (purple!) cabbage it was. So I shredded the carrots and the cabbage, and then I went to bed with a nasty cold.

When I woke up, I could hear the sounds of cooking and laughter: our friend Jeannie was visiting, and she and Sami were trying to get the meal finished for me: neither one knew where much of the cookware or ingredients were, but they dug around and were eventually able to find everything they needed. Jeannie was concerned that she hadn't pressed the garlic as the recipe had directed, but I assured her that she had probably followed the recipe much better than I would have.

The steak was incredible: tender and flavorful. I wasn't quite so sold on the salad: the cabbage seemed awfully bitter. I had planned to add some frozen chopped mint and basil to the salad along with the cilantro, but I hadn't communicated that to the others--it might have helped. But Sami and Jeannie pronounced it "perfect", and Claire did in fact enjoy her breakfast steak and salad the next morning, while Jeannie had it for lunch. I might enjoy this even more as a classic stir-fry, with the cabbage and carrots cooked rather than raw. But it was definitely worth making, and very nice to have made for me.