Recipe - Hot Hot Orange Beef Or Chicken

MARINATE 224 HOURS
One half pound Flank steak; cut or sliced up thinly
across the grain

IN
1 lg Egg white; lightly beaten
1 tablespoon Soy sauce
1 tablespoon Cornstarch
1/8 teaspoon White pepper
One half teaspoon Dark sesame oil

PREPARE/HAVE READY ON PLATE
2 lg Garlic cloves; minced
20 Dried red chilies; (I use
ancho) For mild heat, leave
whole; for med heat, break
up One half of the chilies; for
hottest, break up all the
chilies
Orange peel from one med
orange; cut into 1" or
smaller pieces

SEASONING LIQUID
1 tablespoon Sugar
3 tablespoon Hoisen sauce
1 tablespoon Soy sauce
1 tablespoon Vinegar; (preferably rice
wine)
1 tablespoon Dry sherry
1 tablespoon Chili oil
One fourth teaspoon Salt
One half teaspoon Cornstarch
1 tablespoon Dark sesame oil

from A Taste of Chinatown

Stir together in a separate bowl and have ready seasoning liquid:

Heat wok on high. Add 2 Tb vegetable oil. When hot, add aromatics (garlic
etc) and stir fry 30 sec1 min to release fragrance. Add beef and stir fry
a couple minutes until medium rare. Restir seasoning liquid and add to
wok. Toss to thoroughly coat beef and until sauce thickens. Serve over
white rice.

Notes:

1. Preparing everything before beginning to cook is crucial

2. Doubles well, and sometimes I just double the sauce, because I love the
taste.

3. I omit the salt, but usually add juice from the orange to the seasoning
sauce and double the cornstarch.

4. I also usually omit the egg in the marinade, sometimes ading a splash of
vinegar and/or sherry and a bit more cornstarch.

5. To make with chicken, substitute Three fourths pound boneless breast or thigh meat
cut into 1/2" cubes and cooked a couple minuted longer, but starting with
the following marinade instead:

2 Tb water 1 tsp soy sauce 1 Tb cornstarch 1 tsp dark sesame oil

The most famous use for hoisin sauce is to paint a on the mandarin pancakes
served with Peking duck. You can do something similar but simpler by
painting a bit on some flour totillas, tossing in a bit of chopped scallion
and/or other veggies you might wish and rolling around some roasted chicken
or duck.

I use the above recipe as a kind of generic stirfry blueprint, BTW. I
marinate and cook the meat in a similar way, just varying by what I have at
hand or feel like leaving out the chilies and adding 12 Tb chopped fresh
ginger ot mashed fermented black beans to the aromatics, putting some
oyster sauce, chili paste, lemon juice, etc in the sauce. To include
vegies, chop into bite sized pieces and stir fry them first for a minute or
two in a couple Tb veg oil. Add a bit of broth or bouillion, cover and
steam a minute or two, depending upon their hardness. Remove from pan,
prepare the meat/sause, and stir veggies back in for another minute or so
of cooking before serving.

Posted to EATL Digest by Kim Malo kmalo19@IDT.NET on Mar 12, 1998