Recipe - Keith Vongs Orange-Flavored Beef

4 (up to)
6 Scallions; green part only,
coarsely chopped
4 sl Fresh ginger; thin
One half Orange peel; dried, cut
into 3 to 4 pieces
5 Dried red peppers; more or
less (they're extremely
fiery!)
8 (up to)
10 ounce Flank steak
1 Egg
Salt and black pepper to
taste
3 (up to)
4 tablespoon Cornstarch
Chili pepper paste
One half cup Soy sauce
One half cup Chicken broth
4 tablespoon Sugar
2 teaspoon Vinegar
1 tablespoon Cornstarch
Water
Deepfried rice noodles or
boiled rice

NOTE: Vong dries his own orange peel. You can do so by simply leaving the
orange peel exposed to air overnight.

Slice flank steak into pieces about the size of a halfdollar and about
1/4inch thick or slightly thicker.

Put the scallion, fresh ginger, dried orange peel and red peppers in a
bowl and set aside.

Break the egg into the meat. Add salt and pepper and mix well. (Vong uses
his hand.) Add enough cornstarch. (Here you'll just have to guess; Vong
appears to scoop 34 tablespoons into the meat.) Mix thoroughly to coat
each piece.

Pour enough vegetable oil into a deep pan to cover the meat well. Heat it
at least to 375400 degrees, and add the meat, one piece at a time, so that
two or more pieces don't adhere during the cooking. Cook, stirring, until
the beef begins to brown lightly and becomes crisp. Vong removes a piece
and checke the crispness with his fingers. With a strainer he removes all
the meat from the fat to check it, returning it to brown a bit more as
needed.

When it's light brown and crisp, remove and drain the meat.

Pour the oil into another container, returning 23 tablespoons of oil to
the pan in which you've cooked the meat. Add the ingredients from the first
bowl (green onion mixture) and a pinch of monosodium glutamate if you wish.

At this point Vong also adds a pastelike chili pepper (available in
Chinese groceries), a small ladle of equal amounts of soy sauce and chicken
broth, probably about One half cup of each; about 4 tablespoons sugar, 2
teaspoons vinegar and a tablespoon or so of cornstarch that has been
dampened in water to form a thick paste.

Cook and stir this mixture well, until sugar is melted and almost
caramelized and the sauce is thick. It should take no more that 34
minutes.

Add the cooked beef, stir to coat, and serve over deepfried rice noodles
or, if preferred, plain boiled rice.

From a collection of my mother's (Judy Hosey) recipe box which contained
lots of her favorite recipes, clippings, etc. Downloaded from Glen's MM
Recipe Archive, http://www.erols.com/hosey.