Mongolian Beef


Ingredients:

1 lb		Round Roast or similar
2 Tbsp		Soy sauce
1/2 Tsp		Salt
1 Tbsp		Dry sherry (or Chinese rice cooking wine)
1/2 Tsp		Dried red pepper flakes (for whole peppers, see 'Comments')
3 Tbsp		Peanut oil
1 Tbsp		Sesame oil
1/2 Tbsp	Garlic
8		Green onion tops
1/2 Tbsp	Corn starch


Directions:

Chop beef into 'strings' of about 1/4" square cross-section, 1-2" long. Add 1
Tbsp soy sauce, salt, sherry, red pepper, stir; add 2 Tbsp peanut oil and
stir again. Let stand while doing remaining preparations.

Mix remaining 1 Tbsp soy sauce, sesame oil, corn starch. Set aside.

Chop onion tops (if you have whole green onions, you can make Kung Pao Chi
Ding the day before/after, and use the bottoms there) into short segments
(1/2"-3/4" long for the leaf part, where they are dark green, 1/4" or less at
the base, where they are light greeen - for best results, keep tops and
bottoms separate).

Heat last 1 Tbsp peanut oil in wok at 400 degrees. When hot, add garlic: stir
for 10 second.

Add remaining oil and beef mix, stir for 2 minutes.

Add onion bases (if kept separate), stir 30 seconds. Add onion tops, stir for
30 seconds. Add soy/corn-starch mix, stir 1 minute, or until sauce thickens.
(If you like, you can wash out the bowl that contained the soy/corn-starch
mix with 1-2 Tbsp of water, and add this to the mix.)

Serve _immediately_.


Comments

I use a West Bend electric wok, which has good temperature control, and the
times are all based on that. A classical wok could be used, but you may need
to adjust the times.

Keep stirring the mixture as constantly as you can - the more it's stirred,
the better it will be.

If you have problems getting the sauce to an optimal consistency, mix another
Tbsp of corn starch in 2 Tbsp _cold_ water (stir till smooth consistency)
before starting; at the end, use as needed to thicken mixture.

You can replace the red pepper flakes with about 3 times the equivalent
[since i) you won't eat them, and ii) when they are whole you don't get as
much of the pepper acids out of them when they cook] in whole peppers.

This recipe can be safely approximately doubled by doubling materials, and
extending the main cooking stage by a minute or so, but to do more than that,
you have to do it in batches, otherwise with too much stuff in the wok the
food will not cook at the right rate.