Stir-fried Minced Beef with Chillies and Holy Basil (Neua Pat Bai Grapao)

I had this dish on my ‘to cook’ list for a great length of time before actually biting the bullet. I was hesitant because I was actually afraid of this dish when I was living in Thailand! It stems from an incident when I went to my favourite restaurant in Bangkok where one of my best friends works. After thinking about ordering my usual red curry (gang dang), I told my Thai friend that I wanted something completely authentic, and done in the Thai style. That meant I didn’t want it toned down for a farang (a foreigner), and I wanted it served to me as Thai people ate it. Intent to prove to my local friend that I had what it takes to mix it with Thai people in the heat department, I displayed a great level of confidence. Quite simply, it was misplaced. My friend sat down with me and had actually ordered two, so we were eating the same dish at the same time. He started eating and was perfectly fine, and I must admit the apprehension was getting the better of me. Finally I began, and, as is relatively usual, things seemed to be going quite well. Then after just 30 seconds, it began. My head starting throbbing, my throat seemed to be closing and I really struggled to breathe. Nothing would help me – water, beer, ice cubes even. They just seemed to intensify the heat, and I went home with my tail between my legs realising that I was, after all, just a ‘farang’, and couldn’t match it with the locals.

When I eventually cooked this dish, I was still trepidatious. As it turned out, however, it was absolutely delicious! I probably used around 15 bird’s eye chillies, so it’s not as if I played it on the safe side. Of course, this recipe doesn’t call for as much chilli as the Thais would use, but it’s not by any means a soft version of the recipe. After all, it comes from David Thompson, who is a purveyor of very authentic Thai recipes. All of the elements just seemed to work so well together – the Thai basil, the hit of chilli, the oiliness of the minced beef, and the crispiness of the fried egg, all soaked up by steamed jasmine rice. It makes a great combination! While I was in Thailand, I really came to love Thai basil, and it’s really one of those ingredients that doesn’t have a great substitute. While of course regular basil would be an obvious substitute if you can’t find Thai (Holy) basil, it doesn’t provide the same flavour. For me, this dish is synonmous with Thai street food, something that I came to not only savour but depend on when I worked and lived in Thailand. I must admit that it took my stomach a few months to come to terms with Thai street food, those few months of struggling were well worth it. Even today I saw an article about 20 reasons to visit Bangkok, and street food was of course high up on that list. It just made me realise how lucky I was to immerse myself in another culture, especially one so vibrant and flaboursome. So I heartily recommend this recipe if you want to taste a relatively authentic version of a major Thai street food dish.

8 garlic cloves, peeled

8-20 bird’s eye chillies (scuds)
Good pinch of salt
6-8 tbs vegetable oil
4 eggs
400g coarsely minced beef
About 4 tbs fish sauce
Large pinch of white sugar
½ cup stock or water
4 large handfuls of holy basil leaves
Chillies in fish sauce (below), to serve

Chillies in fish sauce

¼ cup fish sauce
10-15 bird’s eye chillies (scuds), finely sliced
2 garlic cloves, fnely sliced
1 tbs lime juice
Good pinch of chopped coriander

To make the chillies in fish sauce, combine the fish sauce, chillies and garlic in a bowl and set aside. Just before serving, stir through the lime juice and coriander.

To make the stir-fry, coarsely chop the garlic with the chillies and salt.

Heat a well-seasoned wok over a high heat then turn down the heat and add 4 tbs of the oil. Crack in one of the eggs and fry gently, shuffling the egg to prevent it from sticking, until it has cooked to your preference. Spoon some of the hot oil over the egg to ensure the yolk cooks evenly. Carefully lift out the egg with a spatula and place on a warmed plate. Repeat with the remaining eggs, and keep warm while cooking the beef.

Add more oil – you’ll need about 8 tbs of oil all up in the wok. When the oil is hot, fry the garlic and chillies for a moment, but don’t let it colour. Add the beef and continue to stir-fry for a minute until just cooked. Season to taste with the fish sauce and sugar.

Add the stock or water and simmer for a moment, ensuring it doesn’t boil. Stir in the holy basil and as soon as it is wilted, remove from the heat.

Serve on plates with plenty of steamed jasmine rice, a fried egg on top and a bowl of chillies in fish sauce on the side.

Cuisine: Thai

Source: “Thai Street Food” by David Thompson
Rating: Four stars

Laksa with Beef and Dried Prawns (Guay Tio Kaew)

This laksa recipe from David Thompson is the War and Peace of laksa recipes, if not all Asian recipes. Indeed, it’s the most complicated, lengthy and labour-intensive recipe I’ve ever cooked. A brief look at the ingredients of the recipe indicates the multi-layered elements of this laksa. I actually prepared and cooked it over two nights – I prepared the laksa paste on the first night, which itself took longer than the usual laksa paste takes to make because of the unique method of char-grilling the garlic and ginger. In my opinion, it would just be impossible to cook this in a single night unless you had help from your partner or someone else (I cooked it by myself and so had to prepare all of the elements). I’m not saying at all that the effort isn’t worth it, but you need to be prepared to spend a great deal of time and energy in making this dish. While I always enjoy the process of cooking and creating, I must admit that it was a stressful dish to make, and by the time I had finished it, my shoulders and neck were so tense that I could barely turn my head. I think a great deal of the stress comes from time management – the timing of all the separate elements of this dish is quite important, and you need to make sure that you pay attention to all of these elements in order to bring them together at their peaks.

The recipe is quite unique and interesting, and in my opinion it’s actually arguable whether it ultimately is a laksa or not. It comes from Thai Street Food by David Thompson, perhaps the best non-native expert on Thai food (other than myself, of course). Certainly, laksa is not a Thai dish. It originates from Malaysia and Singapore, and to a lesser degree from Indonesia. Laksa is in my top three favourite foods in the world, what I call my 'desert island' foods. Everyone has probably asked themselves this hypothetical – if you were placed on a desert island and could only eat one dish for the rest of your life, what would it be? Well, one dish would become monotonous after a while, so I've altered the hypothetical to include three dishes. It’s one of those difficult questions to answer, such as what your favourite movie of all time is, because there are so many dishes that I love. I think the three would be stuffed crust pepperoni pizza (we’re all allowed an unsophisticated dish!), Thai red curry and laksa.

So I’m very familiar with laksa and its basic elements. Further, I lived and worked in Thailand for one and a half years, not to mention all the other times that I have travelled there, so I know a great deal about Thai cuisine. I was going to say that I know the A-Z of Thai cuisine, but it’s such a broad and regional cuisine that I think it’s impossible to cover the gamut of Thai food without immersing yourself in all areas of Thailand for many, many years. Basically, while this recipe is delicious, it’s not really a Thai dish in my opinion. Nowhere in Thailand have I ever come across a laksa – most Thai people don’t even know what laksa is! Further, it certainly isn’t considered a common form of street food, which Thailand is famous for. There are definitely elements of Thai cuisine in the dish, but to label it as not only a laksa but an example of Thai street food is, in my humble opinion, incorrect and a misrepresentation of Thai food. It actually more closely resembles a Thai red curry than a laksa, as the consistency of the ‘soup’ is quite thick, similar to red curries, whereas laksa soup is usually not nearly as viscous.

Saying all that, this dish is certainly worth the effort! The final result is a delicious combination of some of the best flavours of south-east Asian cooking. The fact that it isn’t exactly a laksa or a red curry, but something in between, is actually quite intriguing and provides a unique eating experience for lovers of Asian food. There could be an argument that there are too many competing flavours and elements to the dish, but south-east Asian food can be quite complex and layered. So prepare yourself in advance if you want to make this dish, which I recommend you do, and I recommend you make it as I did over two nights, unless, as I said, you are going to have help in making it. Just enjoy it for what it is – not a traditional Thai recipe, not an example of Thai street food, not really a laksa, but nevertheless a delicious, creative and ultimately fulfilling recipe.

Recipe (serves 2-3):

400g beef flank, cheek, shin or brisket

2 cups coconut milk

2¼ cups coconut cream

3 cups stock or water

Good pinch of salt

3 bay leaves

2 green cardamom pods

3cm cassia bark piece or cinnamon quill

2 pandanus leaves, knotted

2-3 tbs fish sauce

Pinch of white sugar

¼-½ tsp roasted chilli powder

Vegetable oil, for deep-frying

½ cup sliced red shallots

150g firm tofu

250g fresh rice vermicelli or 200g dried rice vermicelli, soaked for 20 mins

3 cups bean sprouts

¼ cup dried prawns, coarsely ground

2 tbs preserved Chinese vegetable (dtang chai) rinsed and drained

3 eggs, hardboiled, shelled and quartered

¼ cup roasted peanuts, coarsely ground

2 tbs chopped spring onions

2 tbs chopped coriander

Wedges of lime & roasted chilli powder to serve

Laksa paste

2 bamboo skewers

5 dried long red chillies

1 tbs coriander seeds

1 tsp cumin seeds

2-3 cloves

5 slices ginger

4 garlic cloves, unpeeled

3-5 dried bird’s eye chillies

Pinch of salt

2 tbs chopped lemongrass

1 tsp Thai shrimp paste

2 tsp curry powder for beef (see below)

Pinch of grated nutmeg

Curry powder for beef

5 long peppers known as pipalli or peepar (optional)

1 tsp black peppercorns

1½ tbs coriander seeds

1 tbs cumin seeds

1 tsp cloves

1 tsp fennel seeds

7 Thai cardamom pods or 4 green cardamom pods, husked

2 tbs turmeric powder

1½ tbs ground ginger

To make the curry powder for beef, grind the whole spices to a powder using a mortar and pestle. Add the turmeric and ginger, then pass the powder through a sieve. Store in the fridge.

Next, make the laksa paste. Soak the skewers in water for about 30 mins. Nip off the stalks of the dried long red chillies, then cut along their length and scrape out the seeds. Soak the chillies in water for about 15 mins until soft.

Meanwhile, separately roast the coriander, cumin and cloves in a dry, heavy-based frying pan, shaking the pan, until aromatic. Grind to a powder using a mortar and pestle.

Thread the ginger and garlic onto individual skewers. Grill all the skewers: the ginger need only be coloured, but the garlic must be charred and the flesh soft. Allow to cool, then peel the garlic.

Drain the soaked chillies, squeezing to extract as much water as possible, then roughly chop them. Rinse the dried bird’s eye chillies to remove any dust. Using a mortar & pestle, pound the long red chillies with the salt and, when reduced to a paste, add the bird’s eye chillies. Continue to pound, adding the lemongrass, galangal, shallots, ginger, garlic and shrimp paste, reducing each one to a fine paste before adding the next. Finally, stir in the ground spices, curry powder and nutmeg.

Place the beef in cling-wrap in the freezer for 30 mins beforehand. Trim the beef and cut into thin slices around 2cm thick. Rinse well and dry.

In a large saucepan or stockpot, bring the coconut milk, 2 cups of the stock and 1 cup of the coconut cream to the boil with the salt. Add the paste and, when it has dissolved, the beef. Simmer gently, stirring occasionally, until the beef is just cooked and beginning to become tender. This could take anywhere between 25-45 mins.

In a dry, heavy-based frying pan, briefly roast the cardamom or bay leaves, cardamom pods and cassia bark/cinnamon quill, then add them to the beef, along with the pandanus. Simmer for another 5 mins, skimming occasionally.

Return the soup to the boil (after the option of straining it) and add the fish sauce, sugar and chilli powder. Add the remaining cup of stock and another cup of the coconut cream. Leave to simmer very gently for several minutes, stirring as needed. It improves if left to stand for an hour or so at this point.

Meanwhile, pour the vegetable oil into a large, stable wok or a wide, heavy-based pan until it is about 2/3 full. Heat the oil over a medium-high flame until it reaches 180 degrees. Deep-fry the shallots in the oil until golden, stirring so they cook evenly, then drain on paper towel. Deep-fry the dried chillies for a few moments, then drain on paper towel. Pat the tofu dry and deep-fry it until it has a golden skin. Once drained, cut tofu into cubes. Reserve the oil as the Laksa may need to be enriched later.

When almost ready to serve, re-heat the soup and check the seasoning – it shouldn’t be too thick. The surface should be dappled with an attractive amount of oil. If not, add 1-2 tbs of the remaining oil.

Bring a large pan of salted water to a boil. Pull apart the rice noodle strands and add to the water, together with 2 cups of the bean sprouts. Simmer for a moment or two then drain and divide among four bowls. Add the beef and ladle over the soup.

Sprinkle the Laksa with the ground dried prawns, preserved Chinese vegetable, quarters of hard-boiled egg, roasted peanuts and the remaining cup of bean sprouts. Garnish each bowl with 1 tbs of the remaining coconut cream, 1 tbs of the deep-fried shallots, and some spring onion and coriander. Serve with wedges of lime and roasted chilli powder.

Cuisine: Thai (arguable)

Source: “Thai Street Food” by David Thompson

Rating: Four stars

Aussie Meat Pies

While I certainly am revelling in cooking cuisine from all around the world, I haven’t turned my back on my native cuisine – Australian. I’m sure some people would say that Australia doesn’t have a unique or identifiable cuisine, unlike Thai, Italian, Mexican and Indian. One of the great things about Australia, however, is that it is a very multicultural country, and this is particularly reflected in its culinary tastes. Most Australians eat a variety of different cuisines on a regular basis, and Asian food in particular has a high level of prominence in the Australian food experience. I think it’s a wonderful reflection of how multicultural and diverse Australian society is, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne. And may I say, the quality of Asian food in Australia is drastically higher than it is in North America.

Saying all that, Australia definitely has its own unique dishes and flavours, and I don’t believe anything comes close to a meat pie when considering the fundamental Australian dishes. As I continue to cook food from all around the world, I am endeavouring to cook as many national dishes as possible, as national dishes are a reflection of the nature of that society and culture, and the people of that culture have a strong relationship with those foods. This is certainly the case with Aussie meat pies, which have a ubiquitous presence throughout all of Australia, both in the cities and the “bush”. Meat pies definitely reflect Australian values – they are unpretentious, perfect for socialising with mates, and are wonderful when paired with beer and sport. It doesn’t get much better than going to the footy or the cricket with your mates and having a meat pie and a couple of beers. A prominent visitor to Australia (who I can’t recall at the moment but it may have been Bill Clinton) once said that no one does weekends like Australians. I agree with that statement because, contrary to popular belief outside Australia, Australians are amongst the hardest workers in the world, with some of the longest working hours in the world. As such, we enjoy our weekends, which are invariably filled with sport, socialising and, at the heart of all of these, food.

I absolutely love my meat pies, and along with lamb, they were the things I missed the most when I was living in Thailand (food-wise, that is). There are a variety of meat pies enjoyed in Australia, but the simple beef meat pie with some gravy is the staple and, in my view, the most enjoyable. In a way, they are comparable to American hot dogs. You don’t necessarily always want to know what’s in the meat pie that you’ve just bought – various odd cuts of meat and perhaps even a “golf ball” worth of fat. Well, those concerns are all allayed when you prepare and cook your own meat pies, as you obviously know the source of all the ingredients and you can tailor it to your tastes. This recipe was delicious – so delicious in fact that it didn’t need any tomato sauce to accompany it! I was slightly daunted at the prospect of making pies, as although they look like pretty simple fare, it’s a rather technical process that requires attention to detail to ensure that the meat is perfectly encased within the pastry. I was very proud with how they turned out. Indeed, it’s one of the proudest moments so far of my cooking adventures, and it’s given me the confidence to cook with pastry. Now that I’ve made the basic Aussie meat pie, I will be branching out to make some more delicious and diverse pies not just from Australia, but also from around the world.

Recipe (makes 4 pies):

1 tbs olive oil

1 large brown onion, finely chopped

500g lean beef mince

1 tbs cornflour

4 garlic cloves, finely diced

¾ cup beef stock (or beer)

½ cup tomato sauce

2 tbs Worcestershire sauce

1 tbs barbecue sauce

1 tsp Vegemite

2 sheets frozen, ready-rolled shortcrust pastry, thawed

2 sheets frozen puff pastry, thawed

1 egg, beaten

Heat oil in a saucepan over a medium-high heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook for 3 mins or until soft. Add the mince and cook for 4 mins or until browned.

Mix the cornflour and 1 tbs of stock to form a paste, and add to the pan. Add the stock, sauces and Vegemite and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 8 mins or until thick. Set aside and let cool.

Preheat oven to 220 degrees Celsius. Place a baking tray into the oven. Grease 4 pie pans than have an 8cm base measurement.

Cut 4 x 15cm circles from the shortcrust pastry, and use to line the bases and sides of the pans. Fill with mince and brush the rims with water. Cut 4 x 15cm circles from the puff pastry and place over the meat. Press to seal. Trim the sides, brush with the beaten egg and season.

Place pies onto the baking tray and bake for 20-25 mins or until golden. Serve.

Cuisine: Australian

Source: www.taste.com.au

Rating: Four stars

Beef Rendang

Beef Rendang is one of my favourite dishes, and, at least since I’ve returned from Sydney, I eat it at least once a week, although this was the first time that I cooked it myself. It is one of the most popular dishes in Malaysian cuisine, and it seems to have a level of complexity that Malaysians, or at least those in the know, are able to easily overcome. For instance, there are two great Malaysian restaurants (more life fast-food places if you know what I mean) in the city that I get food from often, specifically Beef Rendang, Laksa and Malaysian Chicken Curry, which I plan to cook next week for my parents. The first one is Laksa House on the bottom level of the Queen Victorian Building (QVB), which I’m sure many of you would be familiar with. The second place, which I think is slightly better than Laksa House, is Malay Chinese Takeaway on Hunter Street near the corner of Castlereagh St. It’s an absolutely no-frills type of place, sort of hole-in-the-wall which you often find the best dishes in when you travel throughout Asia. Indeed, if you get there at 11:55, you can go straight up to the counter and order, but ten minutes later there is a queue of at least 20 people because it’s so popular. Their dishes are authentic and just so delectable, and their Beef Rendang just falls apart.

I do believe that that is the key element, or at least one of the key elements, of Beef Rendang. The beef in all the great rendangs that I have tasted have obviously been slow cooked and are melt in your mouth. There is absolutely no toughness in the meat, and as such the texture is probably my most favourite texture for a meat. One of the other key elements in the dish is the gravy. Firstly, the gravy needs to have those authentic Malay flavours such as lemongrass, chilli, galangal and palm sugar, echoing many of the flavours of Thailand and South-East Asian cuisine in general. The cuisine in South-East Asia is at the same time remarkably diverse and yet reliant upon the same primary herbs and spices. Malaysian cuisine is particularly similar to Indonesian cuisine, and they both have similar but unique versions of well known and much loved dishes such as Nasi Goreng and Laksa. Throughout my cooking adventures to come, I plan to cook the Malaysian, Indonesian and even Bruneian versions of Nasi Goreng so that I can gain a perspective of the different approach to this dish. Anyway, returning to the gravy for the Beef Rendang, it also needs to be thick and sufficient to provide enough moisture to accompany the beef. Sometimes, due to the slow cooking method of the beef which can leech out much of the moisture from the beef, the gravy needs to be close to perfect – too thick and it can make the dish dry; too thin and the richness of the spices is lost and the beef won’t achieve the right texture.  

This particular rendang recipe is from Neil Perry, and given that he is arguably Australia’s best chef, I was excited that I had finally found the perfect recipe for rendang that would give me the beef texture and gravy consistency that I love to buy from places like Malay Chinese Takeaway. Let me say firstly that the dish was quite delicious and I enjoyed it as I do all Asian food. Having said that, it didn’t live up to my expectations, as the gravy was thick but was not voluminous enough to accompany the beef, and the beef didn’t achieve that soft, crumbling texture that is involved with beef rendang. Further, the flavours, while still delicious as I said, were sometimes overwhelmed by the amount of chilli used in the dish, whereas beef rendang is usually not a spicy dish at all. The curry paste calls for 12 long red chillies, and even though they are de-seeded, they provided too much spice for a rendang recipe. Next time, I will cut the amount of chilli in half, and increase the amount of liquid involved in the cooking process. As for the beef, the recipe is ambiguous on the cut of beef required. Obviously, I presumed that a cut of beef suited for stewing or slower cooking, such as blade or chuck steak, were ideal, but the beef didn’t tenderise to the degree that I had wanted. I’m not sure if there are more suitable cuts of beef for a dish such as this. I’m starting to wonder if these Malaysian kitchens have access to a secret type of beef that I have no idea about!!! Can anyone help me out with this? I did see that there is a cut of beef called ‘Gravy Beef’ which seems to imply that it would be suitable for a recipe like this and might tenderise to the point of breaking down, but no matter how long I seem to cook chuck or blade steak, I can never reach that melting consistency in the beef.

While my cooking adventures are about constantly discovering new dishes from different parts of the world, they are also about finding and perfecting recipes that I love. So, I will be looking for another Beef Rendang recipe and will keep cooking it until I find a recipe that I’m happy with it. As ever, I will keep everyone up to date on my cooking travails, and invite comments and suggestions from all.

Recipe (serves 2-3):

800g beef, cubed

150g rendang curry paste (see below)

600ml coconut milk

1½ tbs tamarind paste

6 kaffir lime leaves, crushed

1½ tbs grated palm sugar

Rendang curry paste

15g shrimp paste

1 red onion, roughly chopped

5g fresh turmeric, grated, or 1 tsp ground turmeric

Finely grated zest of 1 lime (kaffir lime best)

40g ginger, finely chopped

40g galangal, finely chopped

1 lemongrass stem, white part only chopped

12 long red chillies, deseeded & chopped

8 garlic cloves, finely chopped

Wrap shrimp paste in foil and roast for about 10 mins in a medium oven or until fragrant.

Blend all paste ingredients together until a smooth paste is formed.

Heat a large wok or pan then add the curry paste and fry for around 3 mins or until fragrant.

Add the beef, coconut milk, tamarind and kaffir lime leaves. Simmer, uncovered, for 1-1½ hours until the meat is tender and the gravy has thickened, stirring frequently.

Finally, add the palm sugar and salt to taste. Serve with Nasi Lemak or steamed rice.

Cuisine: Malaysian

Source: “Good Food” by Neil Perry

Rating: Three and a half stars

Dry-Fried Sichuan Beef

Chinese cooking is one of the most diverse forms of food in the world. This probably isn’t surprising given the fact that China has a population of 1.3 billion people and is the fourth largest country in the world by land mass. People in the Western world often associate Chinese food with simple and westernised dishes such as Honey Chicken, spring rolls and Kung Pow Chicken. While these are certainly tasty dishes in their own right, the depth and variety of Chinese cooking is extraordinary, and often is not exemplified well in Western countries, although I believe we are lucky in Australia (particularly Sydney) to have so many excellent Chinese chefs and restaurants, and as such we have a closer appreciation of genuine Chinese cuisine. The restaurant that instantly comes to mind is The East, right at the steps of the Sydney Opera House. Its dishes are mouth-wateringly delicious and the setting could not be more perfect. And incredibly, it’s actually not too expensive, which is amazing given everything in Sydney costs you nearly another mortgage!

Chinese food ranges from province to province, from the lush and dense east coast to the arid, desert setting of the west, not to mention all of the provinces in between, such as Sichuan province. Certainly, Chinese people are known to have intriguing eating habits, and not all Chinese food is exactly appealing. We all know the dogs used in Southern Chinese cooking, and I recall a TV special leading up to the Beijing Olympics displaying one of many Chinese restaurants that specialise specifically in ‘genital’ dishes. The journalist, I believe, had a lovely taste of deer penis, which many Chinese people believe has medicinal and spiritual qualities and is often used as an aphrodisiac. While I have eaten fried cockroaches in Western Thailand, I’m quite sure that I would have to leave the dog and penis dishes to their local fans. However, this is a mere microcosm of Chinese cuisine, and Chinese food is eaten with passion in Chinatowns in every major city throughout the world.

This dish obviously comes from Sichuan province, roughly in the middle of China, and is a recipe I picked up from perhaps Australia’s best Chinese chef, Kylie Kwong. Sichuan food, to my recollection at least, is well known for its spicy and exotic qualities, and this recipe is a perfect example of its cuisine, although without a huge hit of heat. I’ve watched all of Kylie Kwong’s cooking DVDs, and I love how she has such passion for the food of her homeland and how she makes her recipes relatively simple to follow. If anything, her recipes in Simple Chinese Cooking are too basic, but they do provide an excellent introduction to cooking Chinese food, and illustrating the basic elements of Chinese dishes, such as how to make Sichuan salt and pepper used in this dish and many others. I will definitely buy her other cookbooks which, I believe, delve further into Chinese food and explore more exotic and complicated dishes, although often the simplest dishes, done well, are the most delicious. One of the great tips I picked up from Kwong that I now use all the time is, when I need to cut beef or steak into thin slices, to wrap the beef tightly in cling-film and place it in the freezer for half an hour. It really works, as it makes it so much easier to cut the beef into thin strips of meat appropriate for stir-fry.

I loved this dish, and I didn’t go light on the shredded iceberg lettuce leaves – I found that they provided a delicious contrast to the meat and enhanced the flavours. I really enjoyed making the Sichuan pepper and salt, and I now have a big tub of it stored for future cooking. By the way, this is something I’ve been meaning to say – in my recipes, I always increase the amount of garlic, as all my friends know that I’m a garlic fanatic. I never thought I would be worse than my brother – when I was younger I would sometimes get home and the house (very big) would absolutely reek of garlic. I have remembered to edit the recipes so far to reflect the actual amount of garlic called for (for example, I used 5 garlic cloves in this recipe, not 2), so if one of my recipes happens to call for an absurd amount of garlic, please prompt me with a comment to make sure I haven’t forgotten to edit it appropriately.

Recipe (serves 2):

2 x 300g beef fillets

1½ cups vegetable oil

2 large red chillies, finely sliced

1 tbs finely diced ginger

2 garlic cloves, finely diced

2 tbs Hoisin sauce

2 tsp Sichuan pepper & salt

1 cup finely sliced spring onions

Extra pinch Sichuan pepper & salt

½ cup finely shredded iceberg lettuce leaves

Wrap beef fillets in plastic cling wrap. Place on a tray in the freezer for about 30 mins or until slightly firm, so they are easy to slice finely without tearing. Remove plastic cling wrap and, using a sharp knife, cut beef fillets into 5mm pieces.

To make the Sichuan pepper & salt, dry roast Sichuan peppercorns and sea salt (1 tbs Sichuan peppercorns to every 3 tbs sea salt) in a heavy-based pan. When the peppercorns begin to ‘pop’ and become aromatic, take off the heat. Allow to cool, then grind to a powder in a mortar and pestle.

Heat oil in a hot wok until surface seems to shimmer slightly. Add half the beef and stir-fry for 1 min, stirring constantly to prevent beef sticking together. Remove from wok with a slotted spoon, drain well on kitchen paper and set aside. Repeat process with remaining beef. Remove excess oil from wok and wipe clean.

Heat extra oil in the same hot wok. Stir in chilli, ginger and garlic and cook on a medium heat for 30 secs, stirring constantly to ensure garlic doesn’t burn.

Return beef to wok with Hoisin sauce and stir-fry for a further 30 secs. Add Sichuan pepper & salt and stir-fry for 30 secs. Lastly, stir through spring onions.

Arrange beef on a platter, sprinkle with extra Sichuan pepper & salt, and top with lettuce.

Category: Chinese

Source: “Simple Chinese Cooking” by Kylie Kwong

Rating: Five stars