Red-cooked Beef with Shiitake Mushrooms

Again I haven't been a good blogger. No particular reason this time. I was cooking mostly usual everyday food, soups, salads, meatballs you know. Nothing too impressive. Sometimes my cooking mood goes together with the weather, which was not exactly great these days. But today it was really amazing! After a short rain in the morning the sun came out and the whole city looked so wonderfully optimistic. I took a long ride across the canals of Amsterdam. It felt almost like spring. To be honest, each time I see sun in the sky I hope that it could be a start!

Well anyway, the day was nice and on my way home I stopped at a Turkish grocery store for supplies. Fruits, vegetables, couscous, cheese, olives... hmmm... black Shiitake mushrooms. Haven't bought them for quite some time actually. Maybe today I'll go with Chinese food.

Well the original recipe was vegetarian and required 225gr of tofu. But since I don't like tofu I substituted it by 300gr lean beef and it was very very tasty! It's nice to cook something different for a change! :)

INGREDIENTS:

300gr learn beef
4 tbsp dark soy sauce
2 tbsp dry sherry
2 tsp dark brown sugar
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tbsp fresh root ginger, finely chopped
8 canned Shiitake mushrooms
1 tsp cornflour
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 cup spring onions, chopped
black pepper to taste
egg noodles, cooked

1. Cut the beef in small, slices about half centimeter thick.
2. In a bowl mix the soy sauce, sherry, sugar, garlic and ginger. Place in the beef slices in the mixture and leave to marinate for about half an hour. Drain reserving the marinade.
3. Squeeze the mushrooms, reserving the can liquid, and slice them.
4. In a small bowl mix the soy marinate, 6 tbsp of mushroom liquid and the cornflour.
5. Heat a wok and add the oil. Stir-fry the beef slices for about 5 minutes then remove from the wok and set aside.
6. Add to the wok he mushrooms and the spring onions and stir-fry for about 2-3 minutes. Pour in the marinade mixture, season with black pepper and cook until the liquid thickens.
7. Return the beef to the wok and simmer for a couple of minutes, letting the flavors to mix. Serve over the egg noodles

Chow Mein

I always wanted to get myself a good wok. And each time in the store I would find excuses, that the ones offered were either too expensive or of a poor quality or a combination of both. That's why I was really happy when for my birthday Katja and David got me a wok! (Thank you guys!) Of course the very next day I had to try it. It proved to be a very good one.

In order to decide what to cook I checked one of many cooking books that I have (in fact I have a whole collection of them!) and I found the following recipe, which I adjusted according to my taste and the ingredients in my fridge. This is what I got:

INGREDIENTS:

500 gr egg noodles, cooked according to the package directions
3 tbsp vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tsp fresh ginger, chopped
1 red chilly, chopped
1 skinless, boneless chicken breast, thinly sliced
20-25 uncooked large shrimps or tiger prawns, peeled
100 gr green beans
1 medium-size carrot, chopped
100 gr baby corn, chopped
1/2 cup mushrooms, chopped
2 tbsp bamboo shoots, sliced
3 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp oyster sauce
black pepper, freshly ground

1. Heat 2 tbsp of oil in a wok.
2. Add garlic, ginger and chillies and fry for 1-2 minutes over a high heat.
3. Add chicken, shrimps and beans. Stir-fry until the chicken and shrimps are cooked through. Transfer to a bowl.
4. Heat the rest of the oil in the same wok. Add green beans, carrots, baby corn, mushrooms and bamboo shoots. Stir-fry for few minutes.
5. Add the noodles and toss to mix. Season with soy sauce, oyster sauce and black pepper.
6. Add the chicken - shrimp mixture. Reheat and mix well with the noodles.

I actually changed the original recipe, which required 2 lap cheong (air-dried Chinese sausage) and a bit different mix of vigetables (green beans, beansprouts, garlic chives). I also added more soy and oyster sauce, I think the original amount was not enough and the food was a bit dry. Finally, it was really good and if you eat reasonable amount (pretty hard for me!) it's not heavy at all!

Bon appétit!

PS: The recipe was adopted from the book "Around the World in 450 Recipes".