Cambodian Beef Salad

Health food. This cost a few quid the first time, but once you've got some of the ingredients in, they'll last for a few salads. Got this one from Rick Stein off of a youtube vid, so, as the recipe on the vid rushed by in less than a minute, I had to employ a bit of intelligent guesswork. I still have no way to check if I'm doing it right, but it sure tastes fine to me. Right... so I got some steak (fairly basic frying steak, but it worked ok) which I cut into strips and laid down in a bowl. Finely chopped some lemongrass and put that with the beef, then squeezed a lime over it and some fish sauce. The lime juice "cooks" the beef if you leave it for half an hour or so, meaning less washing up added to the extra satisfaction that you are eating "caveman style". So, while that was doing its chemical thing, I thinly sliced some thai shallots (I've since run out of these little treasures, meaning another walk to the Asian supermarket is imminent), a red birdseye chilli, a little bit of gem lettuce, a big handfull of beansprouts, lots of roughly chopped thai basil and coriander and peanuts, yes you heard me, and put them into a bowl. Now for the skanky bit. Shrimp paste. This dangerous condiment comes in a jar and it is the same shade of grey as the face of a dead old man. And it smells like that man's ballbag. However, once I mixed a bit of it with some more fish sauce, some brown sugar and some water I had a feeling it would taste ok. So now the beef was ready, so I threw all that, along with the lime juice and lemongrass, in the bowl with the other ingredients. Finally, the shrimpy death sauce gets poured over and the whole lot is mixed up. I then ate the whole thing rapidly as it was delicious and made me feel like I'm on some kind of pretentious macrobiotic diet and never drink or stay up late ever. And, ladies and gentlemen, it can do that for you too.