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This is a basic Chinese dish of beef and broccoli, and while it’s really easy to make, I can’t tell you exactly how to make it. I’ve just been looking for ways to make better use of flank steak, and the thin slices plus a cooking wine-based marinade take out any hint of natural toughness. While I love Wegman’s, their meat counter is the main area where I’d want to make improvements. The prices are quite high for tender cuts, and even at those prices I’ve had a couple of unfortunate purchases. So if I can make good use of a cheaper cut, it’s worth the time and experimentation.
I started with just over a half pound of flank and sliced it thinly across the grain – perhaps somewhere between 1/8 and 1/16 of an inch. I wanted it thin, but not so thin that the meat would fall apart when tossed in the wok. I marinated the sliced pieces in a mixture of hoisin sauce, soy sauce, chili sauce, Chinese cooking wine, five spice, and a little bit of cornstarch as a thickener. This is where it’s up to you to find the best combination. I’ve tried this a few times, all with different proportions and even a few different ingredients (e.g. oyster sauce instead of hoisin); I can’t seem to screw it up, but each batch has had a different flavor. The meat should marinate for a half hour or more.
After the marinating was complete, I blanched a handful of cut broccoli in boiling water for about 10 seconds and removed it to a strainer to drain. I then fired up the wok, got it up to temperature with a tablespoon of sunflower oil, and dumped in the entire meat and marinade mixture. (By this time, the meat had absorbed most of the marinade and there wasn’t much left to splatter as it hit the oil.) Just as the meat was losing the last of its pinkness, I added the broccoli and a handful of raw sprouts, continuing to toss for another minute.
As the meat continues to cook, it starts to release some of the marinade that it has absorbed. What initially may seem a fairly dry dish while it’s in the wok actually ends up having a bit of flavorful sauce that blends nicely with a side of rice. The meat/broccoli proportions gave me enough for one complete dinner plus a lunch, and the meat releases even more of the marinade in the microwave the next day. All in all, this is a pretty basic dish that’s very forgiving in its ingredients.
I am a fan of curries, but am limited in what I will make at home. The permeation of Indian curries into my clothes and apartment are a real turn-off despite the taste; the smell can linger for days. So if I want a good Indian curry, that’s a reason to go out. However, Thai curries don’t present this problem, so I’m more than willing to cook them at home.
This dish is extraordinarily easy to make. (Recipe here.) If you can chop something, boil it, and make sure it doesn’t boil over, that’s about 90% of the work necessary. Typically, Thai curry with chicken is just chicken and potatoes; however, the flexibility of Thai food makes it quite easy to add other things. Take pad thai, for example. Use chicken? Use shrimp? Use both! No peanuts? Use cashews. You can get away with substitutions or adding a lot of things not in the formal recipe.
The same flexibility holds true for this recipe. I had a handful of Brussels sprouts left, so I decided to boil them separately and add them at the end of cooking. It added some color to a tasty, but typically bland-looking meal, and gave me an easy serving of vegetables without having to make a side salad. The sprouts also didn’t muck with the taste of the curry.
Accompanied with jasmine rice, this is a very filling meal. Just a note on the rice maker: these things are essential for pretty much any kitchen. They making cooking rice quick and easy, and there’s no danger of burning or having pots boil over. Of course, if you’re trying to make flavored rice or Persian tadig, you can’t do it with a rice cooker like this since additives can quickly gum up the inside. The rice cooker does pretty much one thing, and does it well.
First, I need to qualify. This is steak frites, but it is steak frites without a grill, decent broiler, or deep fryer. I suppose I could have deep fried the potatoes in a pan, but I don’t like using all of that oil for a single meal. I suppose I also could have used a propane torch on the steak, but the frying pan does a pretty respectable job, and gives me fond for the sauce. Also, I wouldn’t normally use white wine, but I had a bottle already open, and I really just needed the alcohol for the deglazing.
Sorry I didn’t get more pictures. Frying the steak can get pretty messy even with a mesh guard, and I was just trying to manage the oil flying around the kitchen. But here’s how I made both parts, which turned out quite well.
The fries
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Slice one russet potato into 10-15 pieces; don’t peel it. Soak the slices in cold water for about 10 minutes and dry thoroughly. Put the slices into a Ziploc bag with about a tablespoon of sunflower oil, seal, and shake until all pieces are coated.
Now, here’s the fun part. The depth of the flavor using only sunflower oil is pretty shallow, so dice a slice of raw bacon, add it to the bag, and shake some more. Dump it all out onto a foil-lined baking sheet, bacon pieces and all, and bake for about 35 minutes. I added salt and pepper about 10 minutes before the potatoes were done.
The steak
With about 15 minutes left on the potatoes, heat a frying pan on high. Meanwhile, take a nice thick rib eye, dry it with paper towel, and rub in salt, pepper, and real maple syrup. You can also use sugar, but maple syrup adds a little bit more flavor.
Once the pan is hot, add sunflower oil and a piece of butter to the pan in roughly equal amounts. Judge the amount so that the pan bottom is just covered. When the oil/butter mix is hot, gently add the rib eye. Depending on thickness and desired doneness, cook the rib eye 3-4 minutes on each side. I go for 3 minutes a side, which puts a thick rib eye at medium-rare and is short enough that the oil won’t start to smoke.
The finish
By now, you should have a cooked steak on a plate and potatoes nearly finished, but still sizzling in the oven. Take the steak pan, pour off most of the oil, and put the pan back on the burner. At this point, you’ve got a lot of options on how to do the reduction. I added about an ounce of white wine, sliced portabella mushrooms, and a tablespoon of sour cream. Stir and scrape until you’ve got a nice sauce, and pour over the steak as desired. Pull the potatoes out of the oven, and you’re done!
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It’s always heartening to be able to make something better than you’ve ever had it in a restaurant. Typically that “thing” is fairly simple, and depends on the quality of the ingredients rather than the skill of the cook. It’s easy to buy a filet instead of a rib eye at the grocery store, but not so easy to buy a box of culinary ability.
Pad thai was not one of those dishes I expected to turn out well. It’s a mess of different ingredients, different cooking times, and ingredients that behave differently than one might suspect. The rice noodles, for example, are never really boiled – they’re softened in cold water and then fried, during which they have a fantastic ability to stick to the bottom of the wok.
Add in the fact that the prep time for the multitude of ingredients was typically far more than I normally tolerate, and the odds of success really were not good. But now I’m hooked. I’ve made this dish twice, and will probably make it a third time soon. Why? It works. It adds diversity to my diet. It tastes good. Plus, it makes two dinners and a lunch.
It’s not all that bad for you either. Probably the worst ingredient is the amount of sugar; the sauce recipe calls for 1/4 cup, but only half of the sauce recipe goes into one wok’s worth of pad thai. I also use sunflower oil for frying, since it’s healthy and doesn’t impart any flavor as olive oil might.
The real pain of making this dish is shopping for and prepping everything that you need to make it. That’s something that I think I can handle. The recipe’s linked here if you want to give it a shot.
The mai tai has many recipes, but the ones that stay true to the original drink are typically based off of (or are) the original recipes used at Trader Vic’s. I must emphasize the word original, since even at Trader Vic’s today the bartenders will use a mai tai mix unless you specifically request the drink to be made the “old way.” Also, there is a great deal of argument on which rum(s) are best to use. I think a good argument can be made for several of them. Of note, the Appleton Estate Extra is one of the more popular rums, and produces an excellent result. Also of note is El Dorado 12 year old Demerara, which is another top shelf rum with the right consistency and flavor.
So, to make a mai tai, you will need the following:
- 2 oz. of rum (see above for two potential brands)
- 1/2 oz. of Curaçao (triple sec, Cointreau, Citronge, etc.)
- 1/2 oz. of orgeat (almond) syrup
- the juice of one whole lime
Pour everything into a shaker with crushed ice, shake, and serve. Garnish with a wedge of lime.
The color is right on this one, but I didn’t get around to crushing the ice which would normally fill the drink from top to near-bottom. Also, the more appropriate glass is a double rocks glass. But the taste is right. Some recipes suggest a little bit of simple syrup as well – if the drink is not sweet enough for you, 1/4 oz. of syrup will do the trick. I think these are plenty sweet enough already.
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