Mongolian Beef (The Woks of Life)

Not as dark looking as most Mongolian Beef

Is the homemade version better than takeout?

Time: 1 Hour 40 minute (includes marination)

Difficulty: 1/5

Ingredient Availability: 4/5

Mongolian Beef is one of my favorite entrees to order from a Chinese restaurant. I eat a lot of chicken day to day, so it’s a nice change of pace to have some beef every now and then. Most of the Mongolian beef from take out restaurants are very similar, with relatively high sweetness and near identical flavor. One downside of restaurant Mongolian beef is that they often pack the to go tray with onions and dry noodles (I’m not sure what they’re actually called), which leaves you with less beef than you’d like. While I do enjoy the onions, they aren’t as satisfying as the beef, plus more beef means more value. I found this recipe from Bill of The Woks of Life and hope that it was worth finally buying a wok for.

Key Ingredients& Omissions:

Yes, I used packets of soy sauce…Didn’t have a bottle

The ingredients list may seem long if you look on The Woks of Life writeup for the recipe, but a lot of them are reused in different amounts at different steps. I had to remove a point for ingredient availability because I know that Shaoxing wine might be difficult to find. I will give them credit for including a substitute option in dry cooking sherry. Other than that, the rest of the ingredients are fairly common. I skipped out on the dried red chilis as my stomach doesn’t get along very well with spice.

Tools:

• Wok or large skillet

  • you should be able to get away with using a large skillet, especially if you sear the steak in batches

Cooking Review:

Marinade: 1 hour 13 minutes

To start, I sliced my flank steak across the grain and set it aside as I mixed the marinade ingredients together. Once mixed, I added the steak to the bowl and mixed it together before transferring it to the refrigerator for an hour.

Preparing vegetables, dredge, etc: 15 minutes

I was able to do all of these steps while the steak was marinating. This included chopping the green onion and garlic, grating the ginger, and setting up both a cornstarch dredge and slurry. The ingredients for the sauce were mixed during this step,as well.

Dredge and sear steak: 15 minutes

Once an hour or marination had passed, I dredged/tossed the steak in the cornstarch that I had set up earlier. Then, I heated the vegetable oil in the wok over medium high heat until just slightly smoking. The steak pieces were added evenly to the wok and seared for about 2 minutes per side before transferring to a plate. I let rotated each piece of steak closer and further away from the center of the wok during this step to cook them more evenly.

Sauce and finishing: 10 minutes

All but about 1 tablespoon of the oil was drained from the wok and returned to the heat along with the ginger. After a few seconds of cooking, the garlic and white parts of the green onions were added until fragrant. The sauce was added next and brought to a simmer for about 2 minutes. I slowly stirred in the prepared cornstarch slurry, which quickly thickened up the sauce. Finally, the steak and green parts of the green onions were added back to the wok and cooked for another minute or so, tossing to coat the steak.

Analysis:

The first thing that I noticed was how tender that this steak was. I’m not a steak expert, so I don’t know if flank is particularly tender or if something in the marinade specifically made it extra tender, but I was impressed. Of course, slicing it thinly across the grain will help with this, but I’m fairly certain that this is considerably more tender than restaurant Mongolian beef. I appreciate that the sweetness in this dish has been toned down in comparison to the typical Mongolian beef. This allows the flavors to be more balanced, retaining much of the familiar flavor of this dish without feeling like a borderline dessert. Overall, I think the flavor is more interesting yet refined than its takeout counterparts. I think that the searing of the beef contributes to this improved flavor. One thing that I do miss, however, is the onion. I wish that there were either more green onions in it or some sliced onions were incorporated into the recipe, which would not only make the flavor even better (in my estimation), but also add some textural contrast with a little light crunch. I’m giving this recipe a 8/10. It’s very good and impressively easy, but I just feel like there’s an element missing. Maybe it’s the onion, maybe it’s something else. Don’t let that hold you back from trying this, though. I doubt you’d be upset with what you end up with.