From mikekinley@hotmail.com Thu May 20 11:16:08 2004
Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 02:32:58 +0000 (UTC)
From: "M. Kinley" <mikekinley@hotmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.food.recipes
Subject: Schezuan Beef
Followup-To: rec.food.cooking, rec.food.recipes

I am posting an update to a great recipe for Schezuan beef originally
posted by Bill Davis in November, 1992. His original posting, which
provided me some recipe information I had been looking for is as
follows:

[You may recall a recent request for schezuan beef and General Tso's
chicken.  I got (and posted) a number of recipes for the chicken, but
got no beef recipes.  Bill remedied that with this recipe.  MFS]


Schezuan Beef


 I have a really good schezuan beef recipe that I got from watching
 the chef at my favorite Chinese restaurant.
 Marinate 1/3 pound of flank steak cut in two inch long slender 
 strips in a Tbsp or so each of Sherry and Soy and enough cornstarch
to thicken in the fridge for about an hour.  
 Marinate as many chopped dried red chile peppers as you think you can
 stand in a just enough white vinegar to get them wet and set aside.

 Next cut one medium onion in half starting at the north pole.  Now
 cut the halves parallel to the original cut at 1/4 inch intervals
 the idea being to produce slender onion strips to match the meat.
 now sliver a carrot into the same size strips.  And sliver three
 large celery stalks into the same size strips.
 Deep fry the beef strips in a wok until tender, remove, and set aside
 on some paper towels to soak up some of the oil.

 In just a little oil toss in the onion, carrot and wet chiles and
 cook until the onions start looking done.  Throw in about a
tablespoon of soy sauce and let it evaporate for the most part. Add the
beef
back in and toss together for ten seconds.  

 I like this served with white rice on half the plate and the Szechuan
 beef on the other.

 Serves one hungry or two not so hungry people.  Increasing the amount
 of ingredients will probably hurt the efficiency of the wok.

Bill Davis, NetExpress, Foster City Ca.   
bill@netxwest.com            
_____________________________________

I have added a finishing sauce of almost equal parts Hoisin sauce, soy
sauce and sherry, which should be mixed with a teaspoon of cornstarch
and cold water. Mix the cornstarch / water before adding the other 3
ingredients.

The finishing sauce should be introduced at the end of Bill's recipe
and I believe adds the final taste that I was looking for. The key
that Bill provided was the marinating of the crushed red chilies in
vinegar. Very important. If you are making a larger quantity, using a
deep fryer for the meat is better....it gives the meat that "crunchy"
texture that is superior to the wok alone.

Thanks Bill, and I hope my added touch is useful!


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