Asian Beef Lettuce Wraps

This was last week's "New Meal of the Week." They were really good. My whole family was in on the taste-testing this week, so I got a lot more feedback than usual.

I'm accustomed to lettuce wraps that use iceberg lettuce, but these used boston lettuce. I ended up liking the boston lettuce better, because iceberg lettuce can be quite overwhelming in its watery tastelessness. I liked how the boston lettuce complemented the tasty beef and let your mouth experience the complete flavor of the wrap's contents. (Brent really didn't like the boston lettuce for some reason...never really got a clear explanation of WHY from him, but I just thought I would let ya know just to be fair.)

The beef was flank steak. Flank steak seasoned with salt and pepper, and broiled four inches from the heat for 10-12 minutes. Then it was sliced against the grain. Thankfully, I had Brent standing over my shoulder when I sliced the meat because he warned me that flank steak is usually tough and so it should be sliced REALLY thin, like an eighth of an inch thick. I taste-tested a piece after I cut it, and my knees practically buckled. SO GOOD. I let Harrison and Vika taste-test some as well, and then I had to stop them from fighting over the rest. :)

Mango pieces were also called for in the lettuce wraps. Brent was too weirded out to put any in his wraps, but everyone else who did thought that it was just great.

Scallions as well. You can never go wrong with scallions.

And then there was the special sauce that you drizzled over the lettuce wraps just before digging in. Olive oil, lemon juice, garlic and cilantro. So simple, so perfect.

The lettuce wraps were served with asian bean thread noodles with olive oil and scallions and salt. Until I looked at the ingredients of the bean thread noodles after I had already cooked them, I was under the assumption that they were rice noodles. No. Not rice noodles. Bean thread noodles are noodles made out of mung bean starch and potato starch. Uh oh. When I let my family in on what the noodles were made of, we all remembered this scene from the Conflict Resolution episode of The Office:

Michael Scott: Ok, Ryan, you told Toby that Creed has a distinct old man smell.

[Cut to interview]

Creed: I know exactly what he's talking about. I sprout mung beans on a damp paper towel in my desk drawer. Very nutritious, but they smell like death.

Haha. Thankfully the mung bean noodles didn't taste like death. They were actually pretty good. They had a weird texture, too weird for Brent to like, but everyone else enjoyed them. My dad LOVED them, and had more than one helping! (He's usually a really picky eater.)

So all in all, the asian beef lettuce wraps were "GREAT!" as announced by my brother Hunter, who ravishly gobbled them down because of how famished he was after his track meet earlier in the day.

The sad thing is, despite how good they were, I won't be serving them again in my home. :( Brent just didn't like them. And that's what's important to me. :) However, I will be making that flank steak again. It would be delicious in tacos, which are right up Brent's alley!

Oh, and I can't record the recipe here because as I sit writing this I'm enjoying breakfast with my sister and two nieces in Seattle, while the recipe sits on my counter back at home. :) If you want the recipe, ask me and I'll give it to you when I get home. That being said, look forward to pictures and stories from my adventures up here!