This video is sponsored by Honey.
What's up everyone?
Today we're making... Mongolian Beef!
Does Mongolian Beef actually come from Mongolia?
And what are some of the simple tricks restaurants use
to get such silky, tender beef?
These are some of the secrets we'll be exploring
as my dad, a retired Chinese chef, walks us through
his recipe for Mongolian beef,
a take-out favorite he's made thousands of times.
First, he'll be showing us his special technique for cutting beef.
Let's start cutting the beef.
This is about 11 oz of beef.
If you want more, then cook more.
If you want less, then cook less.
Trim away the gristle.
The gristle is tough and stringy, we don't want it.
Up next, my dad will be demonstrating
a specific way to cut beef
that creates more tender bites.
Can you see the grain lines?
If you cut along the grain, the meat will be tough.
We want to cut this way.
If we cut this way, then the meat won't be tough.
Doesn't need to be as long, right?
I cut them into chunks, like this.
The grain is going this way, right?
Do you see?
See?
You have to cut across the grain.
All right, the beef is cut up.
Now, we're going to rinse it with water,
get rid of the excess myoglobin.
When we cook it up,
the meat will be beautiful and delicious.
Move it around.
Rinse out the redness.
The meat won't get so dark when we cook it.
What we're doing here is washing the myoglobin out of the meat
for a better looking final product.
Check our Beef Chow Fun recipe
for more on myoglobin!
Put it here, let it drain.
From MJ and Audrey on Patreon,
"What cut of beef is best for this dish?"
Restaurants usually use flank steak.
You could also get New York steak and slice it thinly.
Actually, if you used thinly-cut New York steak
it'd be cheaper than buying flank steak.
Since my dad knows the secrets
to make even cheaper cuts delicious,
he'd rather save a little money at the grocery store.
On a general note, my parents LOVE to save money,
especially on things like food.
Like a lot of immigrants, they came to America with nothing,
but, they worked hard, saved every penny,
and can proudly say they bought their own home
and put two kids through college.
So if we learn how to manage money,
how to watch your money,
that's the way you become richer and richer, day by day.
These days, my mom has more time to relax
and always asks me to help her with a bunch of online shopping,
which is honestly... something I could be more patient with at times,
BUT, that's why I'm really excited to show her how to use Honey,
a free online shopping tool that automatically searches
for the best coupons on a bunch of our favorite websites.
Once you set up Honey,
all you need to do is shop around online like you normally would,
and once you're ready to buy,
you just click on Honey's tool and
it'll scour the internet for promo codes for the product you're buying.
That's pretty cool.
That's pretty easy.
As a fun fact, when there's a coupon,
Honey finds discounts of about 18% on average.
I've been using Honey for years,
way before we became YouTubers,
so it's pretty surreal to say that we're partnering with Honey.
It is a simple, genius idea,
and I've personally saved probably
several hundreds of dollars using Honey,
so it can definitely make a difference.
If you're down for free savings,
you can add it to your browser for free at joinhoney.com/madewithlau
Again, it's totally free, easy,
and works for a bunch of things you're already buying
on lots of sites you're already shopping on.
Yeah, use coupons with lots of benefits.
Life lessons with Mommy Lau.
Yeah.
Now that we're done cutting the beef,
we'll switch out cutting boards.
And here's a pro-tip from my dad.
Put a towel down here,
so the cutting board won't move around.
Place it like this.
We'll prepare the beef marinade first,
then we'll cut the other ingredients.
This is baking soda.
It tenderizes the meat.
1 tsp.
You might be asking, “why is his dad using baking soda?”
which ties into a question we get from many of our viewers,
which is “how do we get really tender meat?”
The answer starts with baking soda.
We all know that baking soda helps pastries rise and get fluffy
but it's also an amazing meat tenderizer.
The process of marinating meat with baking soda
makes the meat tender and juicy
because it alkalizes the surface of the meat
which prevents the protein strands from binding to each other
and helps it retain water.
Without it, the meat can dry out quickly and become tough.
If you don't want to use baking soda
you can always physically tenderize the meat with a mallet.
To the baking soda, we'll add 1 tbsp of cornstarch,
2 tbsp of water, 1 tbsp of oyster sauce,
1 tsp of light soy sauce, 1 tsp of dark soy sauce
and a 1/4 tsp of white pepper.
We have all of these ingredients listed on our blog at madewithlau.com
along with step-by-step instructions and video clips
to guide you as you make the recipe at home.
Now, we're going to mix the ingredients up.
Let's get ready to marinate the meat.
Squeeze some of the excess water out.
Mix the meat in there.
Take the time to mix the meat,
so that the marinade really soaks into the meat.
It's dry now, see?
While the beef marinates, we have to wonder -
why is this dish called “Mongolian Beef?”
Did it actually come from Mongolia?
Despite being called Mongolian Beef,
Or mung gu ngau juk in Cantonese
this dish has nothing to do with Mongolia or its cuisine.
In Taiwan in the 1950s,
a dish called Mongolian BBQ became hugely popular,
drawing on stereotypes of the time
that Mongolian cuisine was lavish, foreign, and packed with meat.
That carried over to America
and now “Mongolian” describes similar stir-fried dishes
such as Mongolian Beef.
While a dish under this name doesn't exist in China,
it is very similar to cung baau ngau juk,
or beef stir-fry with green onions.
Chinese cuisine has a few other examples of dishes,
like Singapore Noodles,
named after places that they didn't actually originate from.
Despite Mongolian beef's historically inaccurate name,
with its tender beef, quick preparation, and a little kick of spice,
my dad's recipe is sure to wow your friends and family.
Now, let's move on to the vegetables!
Let's start cutting the vegetables.
Red onion, or you can use white onion,
it doesn't matter what kind of onion.
This is a red onion.
We'll cut an onion into roughly 1/4" thick slices,
separating them into strips with our hands.
Loosen them.
What vegetables are best with Mongolian beef?
The important ones are onion and green onion.
Just those two.
At restaurants, the main ones will be onion and green onion.
I only add green and red peppers for the pops of color.
Not too much, this is enough.
My dad ends up only using 3/4 of a whole onion here.
This is green onion.
Do you need to separate them?
We'll cook these green onion whites with the onions.
The green part goes in at the end.
2 cloves of garlic.
We have 4 dried chili peppers.
Don't chop them, leave them whole.
Red bell pepper.
We only need a little.
We just want it for color.
The green bell pepper too.
big_willy_kong asked,
Why do they put WAY more onions and bell peppers in the dish
than the beef itself?
At restaurants, how much beef will they give you for one order?
Not as much as this.
At most, they'll give you 8 oz of beef, and that's a generous portion.
So they'll give you more onions and bell peppers to fill up the dish.
For the bell peppers, we'll only use about half to 3/4 of each color
and slice into strips about the same size as the strips of onion.
I also wanted to make a special shoutout to thank all of our
wonderful Patreon supporters for helping bring this video to life.
If you enjoy our videos and are interested in supporting us directly,
head on over to patreon.com/madewithlau to learn more!
Those are all the ingredients.￼
Next, my dad’s going to show us
the secret sauce restaurants make for Mongolian Beef,
with 1 tbsp of oyster sauce,
1 tbsp of light soy sauce, a 1/2 tsp of dark soy sauce,
a 1/2 tsp of chili sauce (you can use more or less according to your preference),
1 tsp of sugar, and 1 tbsp of cooking wine.
Then we'll mix it together.
The sauce is done.
Once the beef has absorbed all its marinade,
add some oil to the beef to lock in the juices.
Why don't you add it with the marinade?
The oil won't do anything if you add it to unmarinated beef.
What my dad means here is the step of adding oil to the beef
is only effective after the meat has been marinating for a bit,
because its function is to seal in
the marinade that's already inside the meat.
Oil is hydrophobic, meaning it repels water, and if it’s added before,
it will prevent the meat from marinating as effectively.
At restaurants, they'll stir-fry it just like this.
At home, we'll have to add some cornstarch.
It'll help the beef crisp up in the frying process.
About 1 tbsp of cornstarch.
Give it a mix.
Now we’re ready to cook the beef,
so we'll get our wok ready.
There's a lot more to this dish
than just simply stir-frying everything together,
and this next step is critical.
Turn it up to the highest heat.
Let the wok get really hot before you add oil to it.
Let it heat up.
The color's changing in the center.
It's smoking a bit, right?
All right, I'm going to add some oil.
Swirl it around.
A little more oil.
That much oil?
We're frying the beef up.
We'll deep-fry it crispy.
Then we stir-fry.
We'll heat the oil on high for about a minute,
then add our beef.
We'll add the beef now.
Let's see.
It's ready.
How do you know it's hot enough?
You can see it, and by feel.
Your hands can sense it.
Separate them.
Can you see?
The beef is already cooked through.
But I want it crispier,
and it'll be a little more cooked through.
Turn off the stove.
Scoop them out.
After cooking the beef for about a minute and a half,
we'll remove it and let the oil drain off.
Take out the meat, and the rest of the oil,
you can re-use it for cooking other things.
Wow!
Put it here.
Pour the oil here.
So we can re-use it, right?
Now, it's time to put it all together in a stir-fry.
It all goes very quickly so pay close attention!
Turn the stove back on.
We don't need to put any oil in there.
There's already plenty of oil in there.
Garlic.
Dried chili peppers.
All right.
Onions.
Fry the onions for those aromatics.
And the green onion whites.
And these.
Add the green and red bell peppers.
Fry them and release their aromas.
All right, these are all cooked through.
After everything has been stir-frying
for about a minute to a minute and a half,
we'll add the beef.
Add the beef in.
How do you not overcook the meat?
Don't turn the heat too high when the beef is in.
The oil shouldn't be too hot.
Then the beef will come out tender.
It's really fast at the end.
Why does it have to be so fast?
If you're fast, it won't stick to your wok.
That's how you get wok hei.
Let's add the sauce.
After about 20 seconds of stir-frying the beef,
we'll add our sauce,
then the green parts of the green onions.
Add the rest of the green onions.
OH MY GOD!
You can do this too.
After stir-frying the green onions for 30 seconds,
we'll turn off the heat and finish with a tbsp of sesame oil.
It's cooked.
Sesame oil.
Oh my god.
Do you want to taste it? Here.
Yes!
Oh my god.
Hong Doy, time to eat!
Now let’s find out why it was such a favorite
at my parents’ restaurant.
When we had the restaurant, this was a top-selling dish.
I think because the beef is so tender and juicy.
Lot of flavor.
A little spicy.
The veggies, and how the dish looks,
it just looks appetizing, so
American customers order it a lot.
Somebody from Patreon asked,
"Who's better at cooking?"
Out of who? Between me and you?
Oh, it's definitely me!
Honestly, right now, it's Randy.
Jennifer may be better than you at cooking noodles.
She's better at noodles.
Okay, I'll take that.
Whose Chinese is better?
That's not the topic.
Mongolian Beef is complete.
I hope you all enjoy!
Cheers! Mongolian Beef!
YouTube thinks you'll like this recipe next,
let's see if they're right.