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Grilled Lemongrass Beef

A grilled beef dish marinated in lemongrass, shallots, fish sauce, sugar, garlic, and serrano chiles.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,000 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Grilled Lemongrass Beef

Timeabout 1 minute per side

Ingredients

Directions

Make the marinade

  1. Combine lemongrass, shallots, fish sauce, sugar, oil, salt, garlic, and chiles in a food processor.

  2. Process the mixture for 1 minute or until smooth.

Marinate the beef

  1. Add beef and the lemongrass mixture to a small bowl and stir to coat evenly. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap.

  2. Marinate in the refrigerator for about 2-3 hours.

Grill and serve

  1. Prepare the grill.

  2. Remove the beef from the bowl and discard the extra marinade.

  3. Coat the grill with low fat cooking spray.

  4. Grill the beef on each side for about 1 minute or until desired doneness.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Garlic + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Shallot + fish saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together84 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Fish sauce + garlictop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together892 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sirloin tip
Provides the main meat; thin slices cook quickly and stay tender when not overcooked.
Lemongrass
Adds a citrusy, aromatic flavor that defines the dish.
Fish sauce
Adds savory depth and salty umami to the marinade.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the beef brown on the hot grill.
Vegetable oil
Carries the aromatics and helps the marinade coat the beef evenly.

The step that matters

Grilling the thin slices. The beef is sliced thin, so it cooks in about a minute per side. Overcooking toughens the meat by squeezing out moisture, and the sugar in the marinade can scorch over high heat.

Flavor stand-ins for the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, fish sauce, sugar, clove):

  1. Cinnamonbetter flavor fit
  2. Gingerbetter flavor fit
  3. Turmericbetter flavor fit
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, fish sauce, sugar, clove. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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