KITCHEN PRACTICE 1 — Thai Beef Salad (Yam Nua)
====================================================================

SERVES 2

INGREDIENTS
  For the beef:
    300g sirloin or flank steak
    A little oil, salt, and pepper
  For the dressing:
    3 tablespoons fish sauce
    3 tablespoons lime juice (roughly 2-3 limes)
    1-2 teaspoons sugar
    1-2 fresh red chillies, thinly sliced (adjust to taste)
    1 clove garlic, minced (Chapter 3's own mincing technique)
  To finish:
    1 shallot, thinly sliced
    A handful of cherry tomatoes, halved
    Half a cucumber, sliced
    A small handful of fresh mint leaves
    A small handful of fresh coriander (cilantro) leaves

METHOD

Step 1 — Season and sear the steak.
Pat the steak dry (Chapter 4's own "browning needs a dry surface"
principle), season with salt and pepper. Sear in a hot, lightly oiled
pan for a few minutes per side, checking with your thermometer for
medium-rare — roughly 54-57C (Chapter 7's own doneness table).

Step 2 — Rest it properly.
Rest the steak for a genuine 5 minutes, loosely tented, before cutting
in — Chapter 7's own resting rule, not optional here.

Step 3 — Slice against the grain.
Look closely at the meat and identify the direction the muscle fibres
run. Slice thinly, cutting across those fibres rather than along them
— this is what keeps the beef tender to eat rather than stringy and
chewy, regardless of how well it was cooked.

Step 4 — Build the dressing.
Whisk together the fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, chilli, and minced
garlic. Taste it on its own using Chapter 5's own diagnostic approach:
  - Fish sauce is doing the salt job.
  - Lime juice is doing the acid job.
  - Sugar is doing the sweet-balance job, rounding off the sharpness.
  - Chilli is doing a different kind of "heat" entirely — spicy heat,
    not the cooking heat from Chapter 4 — worth noticing they're
    genuinely different things that happen to share a word.
Adjust in small increments, tasting between each, exactly as Chapter 5
recommends.

Step 5 — Assemble.
Toss the sliced shallot, cherry tomatoes, and cucumber with most of
the dressing in a bowl. Add the sliced beef and any resting juices,
toss gently to coat.

Step 6 — Finish and serve.
Scatter the fresh mint and coriander over the top just before serving
— Chapter 5's own point about delicate fresh herbs going in late
applies directly here. Serve immediately while the beef is still
slightly warm against the cold, fresh vegetables.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
WHY THIS WORKS
This dish is a genuine, edible demonstration of Chapter 5's own salt/
acid/fat/heat framework — fish sauce, lime, and chilli in one dressing,
built and tasted the same deliberate way this course has practiced
since Chapter 5. It also directly reuses Chapter 7's own doneness and
resting technique, and Chapter 3's knife skills for the garlic — a real
capstone-style dish for everything the course has covered so far.