Chinese New Year has just past, to (belatedly) celebrate I cooked this recipe by Fushia Dunlop which was published in Feb 2008 Waitrose Food Illustrated.
Serve with steamed greens and fried rice.
Hunanese Beef with Cumin (Serves 2)
350g sirloin steak finely sliced (use fillet if you are feeling rich)
Marinade
1 tbs Chinese cooking wine (I used white vermouth)
1 tsp light soy sauce (I used more)
1 tsp dark soy sauce (I used more)
1 ½ tsp corn flour
Other
1tbs sunflower oil
2cm ginger root peeled and finely chopped (I used microplaned frozen ginger root*)
3 garlic cloves finely chopped
2 red chillies – seeded and finely chopped (I used very lazy chilli)
2 tsp ground cumin (I used whole, dry fried it and ground fresh)
2 salad onions sliced (I used 3 times this amount)
1 tsp sesame oil
Finely slice the steak and put into a bowl. To make the marinade add the liquid ingredients to the cornflour (doing it in this order makes it far easier to mix without getting any lumps) and stir well. Pour the marinade over the beef and stir. Leave for at least an hour
Meanwhile prepare the other ingredients and put into a bowl apart from the oils.
Heat the sunflower oil in a wok until smoking, drain and reserve the marinade from the beef and quickly stir fry the meat for one minute (in the original recipe the meat is fried in far more oil and then drained). Add the ginger, garlic, chilli, cumin and spring onions, cook for another minute, pour over the reserved marinade and sesame oil, cook until reduced and serve.
Variations: I think that a sliced red pepper added with the beef would be a tasty, if not authentic addition.
* Fuss Free Tip: Left over ginger can be peeled and frozen and quickly grated with a microplane from frozen then the remainder popped back into the freezer.
