(no subject)
Here's the recipe I use for Mongolian beef.
Mongolian Beef
Ingredients -
1 1/2 lb flank steak, sliced for stirfry
--
Marinade
1/4 C Soy Sauce (Low salt soy is best, regular is OK)
1/4 C oil
1/4 C rice wine or sherry
1 t cornstarch
2 T sesame oil
1 t crushed garlic (fresh or from a jar, it doesn't matter which.)
--
1 bunch Green onions
or
1/2 sweet or yellow onion, thinly sliced and seperated into strings
--
Noodles
Oil for deep frying (1-2 cups)
4 Oz Maifun rice noodles('Rice stick')
--
Sauce
1/4 C Hoisin sauce
2-3 T hot bean paste (to taste)
1/2 C water
1/4 C water
1 T cornstarch
--
The type of hot bean paste makes a difference. What you're looking for is hot bean paste made from 'Broad' beans, not soybeans. IF you can't find hot bean paste, you can make do with hot bean sauce if it's made with broad beans, If you can't find anything purporting to be hot bean sauce or paste (made with broad beans) I suggest that keep looking, as the flavor won't be right. Make sure you're looking in an oriental grocery, since anything you find in your supermarket probably won't be the right stuff. You can generally find Maifun and Hoisin sauce in the supermarket though.
If you use rice wine, don't use the pre-salted stuff (Ick)
--
Caution #1
This dish is a lot of work
Caution #2
This dish makes a large and difficult-to-clean mess of the stove
(No, you can't clean it up as you go along, you'll be busy)
Caution #3
This dish can take 1 to 2 hours to cook, not counting earlier preparation, so plan ahead.
Caution #4
the deepfry oil is hot. hot oil catches fire when it splashes and is ignited, and it burns you if you get your hands too close when something's cooking. use oven mitts AND a long handle on your strainer.
--
Hint #1
if you can, fry the noodles more than an hour ahead, That allows the deep fry oil to cool to the point that you can put it away instead of having it sit out being a dangerous obstacle in your kitchen while it cools.
hint #2
The beef in the dish is best if it's nicely browned on both sides. In the restaraunt, they have these huge grills or enourmous woks they can lay it out flat & flip it on. The best I can do in my kitchen is to use a griddle or frypan & flatten the bits with tongs.
These instructions are not for a wok, because my wok disappeared from the kitchen, and I when I made do, I found that other things work better for each different thing you use the wok for..
You 'll need:
the ingredients (above)
a big, heavy pan to deep fry in
something with as much surface as possible to fry the meat on
(If you're using the same thing as to deep fry, you'll either need something to put the hot oil in while it cools, or you'll need to cook up the noodles a couple hours ahead)
a saucepan
a deep fry strainer
--
Prep (the day before up to 2 hours before cooking)
slice the beef across the grain. I usually cut a flank steak down the middle with the grain, then slice each half. That makes the slices a good size for cooking and eating. Put the slices in a ziploc plastic bag. Mix the soysauce, oil, sherry and cornstarch in a bowl and pour it in with the meat. mix around a bit, push most of the air out of the bag & seal. squish the beef around a bit to spread the marinade. If it'll be a while keep it in the fridge. take it out a few times and squish it around to mix the marinade.
--
The Noodles
get a pair of large bowls or baskets. one will be for the cooked noodles, put a couple of paper towels in the bottom. The other is for preparing the noodles into. Open the Maifun package, and unfold and pull the noodles apart into smaller tangled bunches. You want the bunches to be sized to fit into your deep-fry basket with room to expand, and not so large that the whole thing won't fit into the oil. You also want them laid in the bowl so that you can just grab another when you want it and don't have to spend a lot of time pulling it away from the other bunches as you're frying.
I use my biggest cast-iron dutch oven for the deep frying, and put between 1 & 2 inches of oil in it. If I'm cooking the noodles just before the resto of the dish, I strain the oil into a big pyrex measure to cool, so that I can use the dutch oven for the final mixing.
What you're going to do when the oil is hot is to tos a bunch of noodles into the hot oil. The noodles will crackle and expand & twist into a wad of cooked noodles. You will flip it over, and it will cracle a little more, finishing the noodles that got pushed out of the oil before the cooked. Then you pull the wad of noodles out, drain them a second, and dump them into the waiting bowl/basket with the paper towels.
The noodles cook faster in hotter oil, slower in cooler oil, so you need to be paying attention to the speed of cooking. If the oil gets too hot, it will scorch the noodles before youcan get them out, if it's too cool, the noodles don't puff up, they just cook into icky crunchy sticks.
So if the oil is cooking slow, you wait for ot to heat up a bit before putting in more noodles, (and turn up the heat if you want to speed it up) if it's cooking really quickly, don't wait before throwing in more noodles (and turn down the heat if you want to slow down.)
When you get near the end of the ucooked noodles, shake the broken bits out of the bunch before you throw them in or you'll be chasing little bits with the strainer or getting burnt bits in your cooked noodles. Turn off the heat before cooking the last bunch of noodles (or last two if you're cursed with an electric range) because the pan will continue heating the oil after you finish, and you don't want to burn it if you can help it.
Resist the temptation to dump the bowl of broken uncooked bits into the hot oil. They're not worth the hassle of scooping them out of the oil, and you probably have plenty of noodles without them.
--
The sauce.
mix the hoisin sauce, hot bean paste, and 1/2 C water into a small saucepan, heat it to a bubble and simmer for a while. seperately, put the cornstarch in 1/4 cup water, mix it well, and keep it handy for the final moments.
--
The beef.
Get your largest flat cooking surface for the beef if you can.
Cook the beef in batches small enough that each peice can be laid flat, browned, flipped, and browned on the other side. If you're using sliced onion insted of green you should cook the onions with the beef this way, in batches. You don't need oil for the beef, there's enough oil in the marinade, an you don't need to add oil for the onions, just throw them on in between when you've got the beef laid out, or start them cooking between beef batches and scoot them around to make room for the beef. These batches are what takes so much time, so if you do larger batches, you will finish faster, but you won't be able to brown the beef as well.
If I'm cooking the beef in the dutch oven instead of on a larger griddle, I'll throw the cooked batches in with each successive batch as it is finished, to keep it hot, keep things consistent, and recycle the oil & juice that drains off.
--
When the beef and onions are cooked, put all of them back into a pot (Or a wok, if you can find yours) stir it, and turn up the heat on the sauce to a boil. when the sauce is boiling, give the cornstarch mixture a quick stir, and stir it into the sauce. when it's nice and thick, mix the sauce in with the beef and serve.
Mongolian Beef
Ingredients -
1 1/2 lb flank steak, sliced for stirfry
--
Marinade
1/4 C Soy Sauce (Low salt soy is best, regular is OK)
1/4 C oil
1/4 C rice wine or sherry
1 t cornstarch
2 T sesame oil
1 t crushed garlic (fresh or from a jar, it doesn't matter which.)
--
1 bunch Green onions
or
1/2 sweet or yellow onion, thinly sliced and seperated into strings
--
Noodles
Oil for deep frying (1-2 cups)
4 Oz Maifun rice noodles('Rice stick')
--
Sauce
1/4 C Hoisin sauce
2-3 T hot bean paste (to taste)
1/2 C water
1/4 C water
1 T cornstarch
--
The type of hot bean paste makes a difference. What you're looking for is hot bean paste made from 'Broad' beans, not soybeans. IF you can't find hot bean paste, you can make do with hot bean sauce if it's made with broad beans, If you can't find anything purporting to be hot bean sauce or paste (made with broad beans) I suggest that keep looking, as the flavor won't be right. Make sure you're looking in an oriental grocery, since anything you find in your supermarket probably won't be the right stuff. You can generally find Maifun and Hoisin sauce in the supermarket though.
If you use rice wine, don't use the pre-salted stuff (Ick)
--
Caution #1
This dish is a lot of work
Caution #2
This dish makes a large and difficult-to-clean mess of the stove
(No, you can't clean it up as you go along, you'll be busy)
Caution #3
This dish can take 1 to 2 hours to cook, not counting earlier preparation, so plan ahead.
Caution #4
the deepfry oil is hot. hot oil catches fire when it splashes and is ignited, and it burns you if you get your hands too close when something's cooking. use oven mitts AND a long handle on your strainer.
--
Hint #1
if you can, fry the noodles more than an hour ahead, That allows the deep fry oil to cool to the point that you can put it away instead of having it sit out being a dangerous obstacle in your kitchen while it cools.
hint #2
The beef in the dish is best if it's nicely browned on both sides. In the restaraunt, they have these huge grills or enourmous woks they can lay it out flat & flip it on. The best I can do in my kitchen is to use a griddle or frypan & flatten the bits with tongs.
These instructions are not for a wok, because my wok disappeared from the kitchen, and I when I made do, I found that other things work better for each different thing you use the wok for..
You 'll need:
the ingredients (above)
a big, heavy pan to deep fry in
something with as much surface as possible to fry the meat on
(If you're using the same thing as to deep fry, you'll either need something to put the hot oil in while it cools, or you'll need to cook up the noodles a couple hours ahead)
a saucepan
a deep fry strainer
--
Prep (the day before up to 2 hours before cooking)
slice the beef across the grain. I usually cut a flank steak down the middle with the grain, then slice each half. That makes the slices a good size for cooking and eating. Put the slices in a ziploc plastic bag. Mix the soysauce, oil, sherry and cornstarch in a bowl and pour it in with the meat. mix around a bit, push most of the air out of the bag & seal. squish the beef around a bit to spread the marinade. If it'll be a while keep it in the fridge. take it out a few times and squish it around to mix the marinade.
--
The Noodles
get a pair of large bowls or baskets. one will be for the cooked noodles, put a couple of paper towels in the bottom. The other is for preparing the noodles into. Open the Maifun package, and unfold and pull the noodles apart into smaller tangled bunches. You want the bunches to be sized to fit into your deep-fry basket with room to expand, and not so large that the whole thing won't fit into the oil. You also want them laid in the bowl so that you can just grab another when you want it and don't have to spend a lot of time pulling it away from the other bunches as you're frying.
I use my biggest cast-iron dutch oven for the deep frying, and put between 1 & 2 inches of oil in it. If I'm cooking the noodles just before the resto of the dish, I strain the oil into a big pyrex measure to cool, so that I can use the dutch oven for the final mixing.
What you're going to do when the oil is hot is to tos a bunch of noodles into the hot oil. The noodles will crackle and expand & twist into a wad of cooked noodles. You will flip it over, and it will cracle a little more, finishing the noodles that got pushed out of the oil before the cooked. Then you pull the wad of noodles out, drain them a second, and dump them into the waiting bowl/basket with the paper towels.
The noodles cook faster in hotter oil, slower in cooler oil, so you need to be paying attention to the speed of cooking. If the oil gets too hot, it will scorch the noodles before youcan get them out, if it's too cool, the noodles don't puff up, they just cook into icky crunchy sticks.
So if the oil is cooking slow, you wait for ot to heat up a bit before putting in more noodles, (and turn up the heat if you want to speed it up) if it's cooking really quickly, don't wait before throwing in more noodles (and turn down the heat if you want to slow down.)
When you get near the end of the ucooked noodles, shake the broken bits out of the bunch before you throw them in or you'll be chasing little bits with the strainer or getting burnt bits in your cooked noodles. Turn off the heat before cooking the last bunch of noodles (or last two if you're cursed with an electric range) because the pan will continue heating the oil after you finish, and you don't want to burn it if you can help it.
Resist the temptation to dump the bowl of broken uncooked bits into the hot oil. They're not worth the hassle of scooping them out of the oil, and you probably have plenty of noodles without them.
--
The sauce.
mix the hoisin sauce, hot bean paste, and 1/2 C water into a small saucepan, heat it to a bubble and simmer for a while. seperately, put the cornstarch in 1/4 cup water, mix it well, and keep it handy for the final moments.
--
The beef.
Get your largest flat cooking surface for the beef if you can.
Cook the beef in batches small enough that each peice can be laid flat, browned, flipped, and browned on the other side. If you're using sliced onion insted of green you should cook the onions with the beef this way, in batches. You don't need oil for the beef, there's enough oil in the marinade, an you don't need to add oil for the onions, just throw them on in between when you've got the beef laid out, or start them cooking between beef batches and scoot them around to make room for the beef. These batches are what takes so much time, so if you do larger batches, you will finish faster, but you won't be able to brown the beef as well.
If I'm cooking the beef in the dutch oven instead of on a larger griddle, I'll throw the cooked batches in with each successive batch as it is finished, to keep it hot, keep things consistent, and recycle the oil & juice that drains off.
--
When the beef and onions are cooked, put all of them back into a pot (Or a wok, if you can find yours) stir it, and turn up the heat on the sauce to a boil. when the sauce is boiling, give the cornstarch mixture a quick stir, and stir it into the sauce. when it's nice and thick, mix the sauce in with the beef and serve.