Spicy beef and basil with vermicelli noodles

Today we're making a dish suggested by my coworker: spicy beef and basil with vermicelli noodles. It's a great dish for the summer with full flavored beef mixed with thin noodles, and tossed with fresh herbs. As usual, I made small changes to this recipe you should check out below.

Spicy beef and basil with vermicelli noodles

Recipe from tastykitchen.com

Cooking time: 30 minutes

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

1 lb lean ground beef

2-3 tbsp Chinese 5 spice

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 tbsp freshly minced ginger

3 Thai chiles, minced

1 zucchini, cut into a small dice

2 tsp fish sauce

1/2 red bell pepper, cut into a small dice

2 scallions, chopped

1/4 cup chopped parsley

1/2 cup freshly chopped basil

1 lime

3 oz vermicelli noodles

coarse salt and freshly ground pepper

Directions

1. Heat medium skillet over medium-high. Add the ground beef and cook until no longer pink, about 6 minutes. Add the Chinese 5 spice and season with salt and pepper. Stir to combine. Add the garlic, ginger, chiles. Stir and saute for 1 minute.
2. Add the diced zucchini to the meat and saute until softened, about 2 minutes. Season with fish sauce and stir. Add more if needed or sprinkle a dash of salt.
3. Meanwhile, bring a pot of water to a boil. Add the vermicelli noodles until cooked and tender, about 7 minutes. Drain and rinse under cold water. 
4. To assemble, toss together the noodles with the beef mixture, diced red bell peppers, basil, parsley, scallions, and a generous squeeze of lime. Serve with lime wedges on the side.

Nutritional Analysis:
per seving: 378 calories, 22.9g fat (8.8g saturated, 0.6g polyunsaturated, 9.1g monounsaturated), 20.4g carbohydrates, 1.1g fiber, 21.0g protein

**Helpful tips and common mistakes

There are specific ingredients in Chinese cuisine that is difficult to locate unless you go to a specific Chinese market. Unfortunately for me, the closest Chinese market is quite a distance so there are times I have to improvise. For instance, I don't have Chinese 5 spice on hand so I had to make my own version. If you also can't find this seasoning but already have these spices, you can make your own as well. Combine 1 tsp ground Szechwan pepper, 1 tsp ground star anise, 1 1/4 tsp ground fennel, 1/2 tsp ground cloves, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp salt, and 1/4 tsp ground white pepper. Again, I don't have Szechwan peppercorns so I used black pepper, which has a milder taste than Szechwan.

When you are ready to saute the beef, I seasoned it with a little salt and pepper. Add your other seasonings and mix.

Add the zucchini and fish sauce. I seasoned with more salt and pepper, and actually did double the amount of the fish sauce. Taste and change according to your preferences.

The final change I made was I bumped up the amount of noodles in this dish. Originally it only calls for 3 oz of noodles, which is very little for 4 people. The dish is supposed to be comprised of mostly beef and less noodles but I had to switch that around for our lunch. The people sure can eat so to fill them up I served about 1 1/2 cups of noodles with 1/2 cup of meat. 

I was pleasantly surprised by this dish. The flavor of the beef is like a party in your mouth! It wasn't as spicy as I had anticipated, but others said it was the perfect amount of spice. The fresh lime juice added a nice tartness to the slightly salty beef. I have to say, if the dish was mostly meat as it's supposed to be, it might verge on being too salty (in this case stick to the original amount of fish sauce). This was a great dish overall, leaving me satisfied but not stuffed, full but not heavy.