Chang's Mongolian Beef (Tuesday, April 19, 2011)

I had a craving for P.F. Chang's Mongolian Beef so I did a search to find out what the secret is that gives their beef that little crunchy edge. What I found was a whole recipe.  The recipe is simple.  It's all about the sauce which is started with garlic and ginger followed by the addition of soy sauce (1/2 cup), water (1/2 cup) and brown sugar (3/4 cup).  I substituted some beer and rice wine vinegar for the water.  I do not regret that decision.  The sauce then needs to reduce for a while.  Apparently the trick that all Chinese food restaurants use is to coat the meat with a dusting of corn starch to give it a little bit of a crust and allow for optimal sauce coverage.  I knew they used cornstarch but I always thought it was added to the sauce to thicken it.  Maybe at some places they do both. I bought a one pound flank steak, sliced it into chunks with 45-degree, against-the-grain cuts and tossed them in a bit of cornstarch.  These went into a wok with about a cup of oil and were essentially fried in small batches giving a nice crust and good color.  Meanwhile the sauce was reducing and when the meat was complete I tossed it into the sauce and let it finish cooking there.  I cut the tops off of 4 bunches of green onion and added those right at the end just to give them a delicious coating.  Knowing how the sauce is made, I now know why this dish is so good.  Sugar and salt make anything taste good.  Using less sugar would probably be just fine.  Also, there's really only a need to make about half of the sauce that I made.  I followed a recipe but ended up with about twice as much sauce as necessary when I plated up.  It was a shame to let all that go down the drain.  I felt like I was flushing my stash of crack.  I made brown rice to go with it.  That makes it healthy!!!  I'm going to try and plant the bottoms from the green onion in the garden, I'm told that the greens will grow back, and when they do I have a good idea what I'll use them for.