Take the beef, or any type of meat you’re using, and marinate it in the ground black pepper and soy sauce for about 1 hour.
Grill the beef on high heat for around 8 minutes on each side (depending on how thick it is), until the meat is medium rare or medium.
Once the beef is finished, set it on a plate to rest for about 5 – 10 minutes, collecting all the meat juice.
Slice the beef against the grain into thin bite sized strips.
For the nam tok salad:
marinated and grilled 500 grams of beef, but for this proceeding salad recipe, we only used 250 grams of the cooked beef.
Peel the shallots and finely slice them, dice the green onions, and pluck a handful of mint leaves.
In a mixing bowl, add 250 grams of the grilled sliced beef, and add the khao khua, fish sauce, sugar, chili flakes, lime juice, shallots, green onions, and mint leaves. Doesn’t matter which order, just toss everything together.
Mix all the ingredients fully, and then taste test. The meat should be sour, salty and spicy to taste, with a freshness from the herbs. Add more lime juice or fish sauce as needed.