(gentle music)
- Okay, so this is my Chinese broccoli or gai lan.
I've already washed it and soaked it in some water.
It's not the prettiest example.
But this little yonder has no flowers on it.
It's actually better when it has the real small flowers
that haven't really opened up yet.
So, anyway.
Depending on the season and where you're at,
you may not be able to get the perfect ones.
You know, we're just gonna trim off the bottom
of the root end.
Then we're gonna take this part.
It's got the thicker root.
And we're gonna go ahead and throw this
in the water first 'cause it's gonna take longer to cook.
And then we're gonna take this portion
and we're just gonna give it a chop.
That's all we're gonna do there.
It will wilt down more when it cooks.
All right, so after about two minutes,
my stalks are starting to get tender.
They're not completely tender yet.
That's fine.
We're gonna go ahead and we're gonna throw
our leaf portion in here.
And we're gonna only put this in here
for a few seconds.
Go ahead and turn that burner off.
Now in the leaf portion all we're really doing
is we're setting the color,
'cause if we throw them in our stir fry
just like this, they'll turn all yucky, brown, and stuff.
Now I've got a pot of ice water sitting here.
Let me move this over here.
There we go.
See how bright green that is now.
And after it cools down,
we're gonna put it in our colander.
Let it drain.
For the beef today, I'm gonna be using flank steak.
This is a much larger piece than what I need.
So let's trim it up a little bit,
'cause I need about eight ounces.
That ought to be about right.
Now this is a lot, well, I'm gonna cut this
against the grain.
As you can see, the grain is going this way.
So it means I'm gonna be cutting it this way.
Now this is a lot longer pieces
than what I'm going to need.
So, we're gonna lay this down
and once again, we're going across the grain.
Now if you put this in the freezer a little bit,
it'll make the cutting easier.
I don't like cutting it too thin.
'Cause the velveting process is gonna make it tender anyway.
Anyway we're just doing like that.
And the beef I'm not cooking today,
I just portioned it out.
Ready to go when I need it.
And for our marinade for our beef,
we're gonna put half a teaspoon of sesame oil.
Half a teaspoon of soy sauce.
Half a teaspoon of rice wine.
If you don't wanna use alcohol,
just use a little water or chicken stock or something.
I'm gonna give this a good mix.
One tablespoon of egg white.
That's about half of a large egg,
the white part of it.
Mix this in.
Add one tablespoon of cornstarch.
We're gonna mix this up until we see no white specks.
And if I have to, I'll add just
a little bit of liquid to it.
And this will need to set in the refrigerator
for about half an hour.
So now I need to make the sauce.
I'm gonna use a quarter cup of vegetable stock.
The recipe's gonna say chicken stock.
That's what I normally use,
but I happen to have some vegetable stock.
It's whatever you wanna use, all right.
I've got one tablespoon of oyster sauce.
One tablespoon of hoisin sauce.
I've got half a tablespoon of raw sugar.
You could use brown,
but I think it gets a little bit stronger.
I have half a teaspoon of dark soy sauce.
This is gonna make it real colorful.
And one teaspoon of sesame oil.
Now we're gonna give this a good mix
and set it aside.
Okay, so I'm just about ready to cook.
My oil has been warming up.
I'm gonna raise the temperature.
And I have everything that I need within reach.
Every utensil, everything.
Let me turn this so I can see what's going on.
There we go.
Because when this process starts,
I don't wanna have to stop.
I don't wanna have to look for anything.
I want it right here where I know where it's at.
I've got my noodles.
I've got my oil.
I've got my drain in stow.
Onions, garlic.
Also go over the recipe.
Go over it in your head one more time.
Now one thing I haven't talked about
is my thickening slurry.
I have half a tablespoon of cornstarch,
half a tablespoon of water.
And I'm gonna put that in my sauce
just so that it clings to the vegetables and the meat.
I don't like to put too much,
because then it becomes goopy.
I don't like a goopy sauce.
I just want it to cling to everything.
So anyway, as soon as this oil gets hot,
we'll get started cooking.
Now for my noodles, I'm using a fresh egg noodle.
They've already been steamed.
So I guess you couldn't really call them fresh,
but anyway, I'm using a small noodle.
These are basically the same noodles
that I made the chow mein with a few days ago.
But they're a lot thinner.
And thinner means there's a lot more surface area
so there's a lot more crispy crunchiness
whenever they get done cooking.
Oil is starting to get hot.
I don't think it's quite there.
Let's take a look.
Nope, it's not quite hot enough yet.
We will be soon.
All right, I think my oil is hot enough.
(oil sizzling)
Yeah, I'd say it's hot enough.
And we're gonna cook these until they're nice and crispy.
You can also call these pan-fried noodles.
The oil has quietened down
so let's take a look and see what we've got here.
Yup, it's got some nice color on that side.
Go ahead and get our noodle cake turned over.
Now don't splash that towards you.
Splash away, put it away from you if you can.
There we go.
And this won't take the second to cook on this side
'cause the other is already done.
All right, so we only cook this side for about 10 seconds.
Now I'm gonna put this on a rack
so that they can drain off some of the oil.
Not all of it will drain off.
We're gonna enjoy some of that.
This oil is still hot.
We're gonna start putting our beef in here.
Now we're not gonna have,
we're not gonna leave this in here very long.
(oil sizzling)
Break it up.
Just go ahead and turn this burner off.
Looks good.
(voice drowned out by sizzling oil)
Now we're just gonna pour this through the strainer.
Okay, I've kind of caught back up on everything.
I went ahead and I put my noodles on my plate,
on my serving plate.
Now I've got, it looks like, about one tablespoon
of oil already in the wok and all the bits
and everything from cooking before.
I'm gonna add one more tablespoon to that.
We're gonna add our onion.
This about half of an onion from a medium onion.
(oil sizzling)
Half a tablespoon of garlic and half
a tablespoon of ginger, roughly chopped.
Now I did cheat.
I used the store bought garlic.
Onion's softened up.
My garlic's starting to get just a little bit of color.
Go ahead and put our sauce in here.
We'll go ahead, our cornstarch slurry.
Put that in.
Mix it up.
Put our beef in.
Put our Chinese broccoli.
Go ahead and turn the burner off.
(beef and broccoli sizzling)
Now I'm gonna plate this up.
So, how's our beef with Chinese broccoli?
Now we've velveted the beef so it should be nice and tender.
Oh, now one thing.
I probably should have made double the amount of sauce.
There's not quite enough liquid
to tenderize the noodles like I was shooting for.
So say instead of a quarter cup of chicken stock,
use half a cup and then use one tablespoon
of cornstarch and one tablespoon of water.
Let's try the beef.
That is melt in your mouth tender.
Absolutely flavorful.
Now let's check our Chinese broccoli.
Mmm, this dish is a winner.
It just needs a little more sauce for noodles.
If you aren't doing the noodles,
leave the sauce amount the same.