Recipe by Nut Siri – Venzin Group

Nut Siri is an ambitious young chef who swapped a career as an engineer, for one in the kitchen. His recipes are inspired by traditional Thai street food from his childhood, and the simple but tasty dishes his mum served at her restaurant. Before moving to Australia Nut spent time working at Gaggan, an Indian restaurant in Bangkok that was awarded best restaurant in Asia in the The World’s 50 Best Restaurants in 2017.

This recipe for sweet beef mince is a sort of Asian “loaded fries”, using crispy tofu base for the base instead of potato chips. Serve it with jasmine rice and fresh coriander to make it a meal.

Serves 4

Prep time: 15 mins
Cook time: 20 mins

Ingredients

Crispy tofu ingredients

  • 500g soft tofu, diced 2cm cubes
  • 200ml vegetable oil
  • 300g tapioca flour

Sweet beef sauce ingredients

  • 75g bacon, finely diced
  • 250g lean beef mince
  • 1 tbsp garlic, crushed
  • 1 capsicum, roughly chopped
  • 2 tomatoes, roughly chopped
  • 1 brown onion, finely chopped
  • 1 tsp ground coriander seed
  • 1 tbsp Asian shallots, finely chopped
  • 20g palm sugar or brown sugar
  • 10ml soy sauce

Garnish ingredients (optional)

  • Black pepper
  • Fresh coriander
  • Jasmine rice, cooked

Method

Step 1

Heat the vegetable oil in a deep frying pan, bringing it up to around 175-180C.

Step 2

Use paper towel to dry the tofu. Coat the tofu cubes in tapioca flour and drop into the hot oil until each turns golden brown and crispy. Pat the tofu with paper towel again to absorb the oil, and place aside.

Step 3

To make the sweet beef sauce, take two tablespoons of oil from the deep frying pan and transfer to a frypan on medium heat. Add garlic, onion and capsicum and stir-fry over until soft and fragrant. Add bacon and stir fry until it turns light brown, then add beef mince and cook well.

Step 4

To the beef mixture, add tomatoes, ground coriander, palm sugar and soy sauce. Season with black pepper.

Step 5

To serve, pour the sweet beef sauce over the crispy tofu and garnish with fresh coriander leaves. Serve with jasmine rice.