Beef & Mushroom Stir Fry With A Hot & Sour Orange Sauce
Stir frying, also referred to as the Chao technique, originated in China and has become incredibly popular in other parts of Asia and Western Countries as a fast and healthy way to prepare meats and vegetables. It is a technique used to cook foods over high heat to seal in the flavor of the meats and preserve the color and texture of the vegetables. Stir frying is similar to the Western technique of sauteing.
For the final dish of my daughter's Spring Break Special meal, I decided to pair the lobster rangoon appetizer and the shrimp fried rice with an incredibly flavorful beef stir fry. It is my Asian twist on the ever popular surf and turf meal here in Maine. It was the perfect ending to this special dinner made for my daughter to kick off the first weekend of her spring break of 2015.
Here are the Ingredients
1 pound of Flank steak, 6 to 8 ounces of Shiitake & Oyster mushrooms, 3 stalks of baby Bok Choy, 2 medium carrots, water chestnuts, ginger, garlic, 2 to 3 dried red chilies, 1 large orange, Shao Shing cooking wine, rice wine vinegar, dark soy sauce, low sodium soy sauce, sesame seed oil, Chinese five spice, white pepper, mung bean sprouts, and finally cornstarch and sugar (not pictured here).
Preparing the ingredients
First start by cutting the flank steak into long, thin strips. You want to cut this meat against or across the grain (shown above). Flank steak tends to be tough and chewy and cutting it against the grain will help to make this meat tender.
Once you are done cutting the flank steak, you will coat each slice of meat with corn starch by sprinkling the starch over the meat and giving it a good toss. Repeat this until all of the slices are well coated.
Next, cut both the carrots and stalks of baby Bok Choy into thin slices at an angle, give the 6 to 8 ounces of mushrooms a rough chop, and mince both the garlic and ginger. The water chestnuts I am using here are a canned product and they have already been sliced but you can give them a rough chop if you want to break them down a little more.
Once you are done preparing your meat and vegetables, you can start to prepare your sauce. In a small bowl, add the juice and the zest of one large orange, one tablespoon of dark soy sauce, 1 tablespoon of low sodium soy sauce, 1 tablespoon of rice wine vinegar, 1 teaspoon of Shao Shing cooking wine, 1 teaspoon of sesame seed oil, a pinch of sugar and 1 heaping tablespoon of cornstarch. Give the sauce a good stir to incorporate the corn starch and set aside.
To prepare for cooking, add 2 tablespoons of peanut oil to a wok or saute pan over high heat.
Once the oil is hot, add the garlic, ginger and dried chilies to the pan and stir. Continue to stir for about 20 to 30 seconds being careful not to burn your garlic and ginger.
After heating the garlic, ginger and chilies, add your beef and spread out evenly in the pan. Let the beef sit until you start to get a good crust on it and then stir to flip and cook the other side.
Once both sides of your beef have a nice brown crust, add one tablespoon of Shao Shing cooking wine to degalze the pan and loosen all of the bits of the beef from the bottom.
Then add the carrots, baby Bok Choy and water chestnuts and stir until softened but still crisp. Once your vegetables are softened, add the mushrooms and stir for another 20 to 30 seconds and then add the sauce to the pan. Continue to stir until the sauce has coated all of the ingredients and starts to bubble and thicken. Add a dash of Chinese five spice and white pepper to taste. Remove the wok or pan from the heat and let it sit for a minute for the sauce to continue to thicken a bit more.
To serve, drizzle a some sesame seed oil over the stir fry and top with the mung bean sprouts.
I really had a great time preparing this meal for my family. It was a lot of work to make the three dishes that made up this Spring Break Special meal but it was well worth the effort and thoroughly enjoyed by all! It doesn't get much better than that!
Enjoy!
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