I took a Chinese cooking a few weeks ago at a local Chinese restaurant. Some girlfriends here told me about it. For 100 RMB you get an hour of cooking and 2 hours of eating! Best deal is Shanghai. The restaurant is Hong Qiao Ren Jia Restaurant, and they serve what is known is Shanghaise style food. It is located at 406 Wulumuqi Nan Lu which is way over in the French Concession. In fact, very close to the U.S. Consulate building. The cooking menu was spicy beef and an almond dessert. The dessert was not so good, so I did not even try to cook. It was basically a simple flan with almond flavoring, but they serve it in sprite with fruit floating in it. Weird. But the beef was good. The chef spoke only Chinese so there was a translator who helped those of who are Mandarin-impaired. But again I observed the strange phenomena of many Chinese words (sometimes a couple of minutes worth) being boiled down into a few simple sentences by the translator. This is one of the main reasons I want to learn mandarin: what are all of the extra words for???? Anyway, the cooking was interesting. The lunch they served us afterwards was unbelievable. It was not the best food I have ever had (that award is still with Emeril's Delmonico restaurant in New Orleans!), but there were at least 25 different dishes on our zhuan pan (that lazy susan thing in the middle of the table). I tried some new things: sheep stomach (not good), rice with whole crabs in it (good), sweet and sour water chestnuts (very good) among others. It would have been nice if there was a list of what we ate so I could mark it. Some things I would recognize in a picture menu, but not all. It was a really good way to try to a lot of different things. There were lots of people who knew Chinese food at our table, so they could help me out with what I might be tasting. I tried everything on the table and other then the sheep stomach, all was pretty good.
So, it took me a while, but I finally made the recipe for the spicy beef they made. I couldn't find the bread crumbs they used and that took me a few days. And yes, this is a fried dish, so you wouldn't want to fix it a lot, but it was different and pretty good. The one thing that is a bit hard is the ingredient referred to as the crispy dried Chile. The ingredient that they used in the restaurant came in a small container and they told us that we had to buy it from this restaurant because we would have a hard time buying somewhere else. It is one of their signature dishes and I guess using hard to find ingredients makes is unique! Surprisingly enough, they had a whole box of these containers available for all of us to buy. I think that you can substitute pretty easily with a small mixture I have noted in the notes. Enjoy!
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Zi Ran Xiang Cui - Crispy Beef with Cumin
1/2 lb Beef Fillet (can use traditional fillet or thigh meat)
3 1/2 Tbs. Breadcrumbs
1 tsp chicken stock granules
2 Tbs crispy Dried Chili (see notes on substitution)
1 Tbs cumin
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
Peanut oil for frying
Marinade:
1 egg white
2 tsp Oyster Sauce
2 tsp corn starch
1 tsp Sugar
1 tsp Black Soy Sauce (this is a lot less saltier!)
1 tsp Chinese Wine (Shoaxing Jiu or similar)
Slice beef into square slices, 1"x 2". Make marinade. Mix beef with marinade and place in fridge for 6 hours or overnight. If using really tender fillet, less time is needed! Heat peanut oil in pan to medium temperature. Coat beef slices with bread crumbs. Deep fry, for 30-45 seconds per side. Do not brown too much! If oil is too warm, cook for less time. Remove beef from oil and drain will on paper. When beef is finished frying, add dried chili, chicken stock, cumin, salt, and pepper to a heated wok or pan. Put heat on medium flame and add beef. Mix beef thoroughly with dry ingredients. Serve warm.
Notes:
If you don't know where to find the "crispy dried chili", and frankly, I can't even find it here, try this simple mix: rice crackers (the pretzel rod slices looking one), sesame seeds, peanuts, chili oil or just olive oil with lots of red pepper. Mix to your liking, you only need a few tablespoons. When I made it for Tom and Natalie, I just mixed in some sesame seeds with a little bit of red pepper, and it was fine. You just will miss the extra crunchiness from the dried chile's. But, if you can find plain dried chile's, try soaking them in some oil (olive would be fine) with the other ingredients. I think this might come close.
As I said, I made a special non-peanut none-spicy for 2/3 of the family. I ate mine with my special spicy stuff on it. It was interesting to take really expensive (well, here it is cheap) meat and deep fry it, but it was pretty good. I served with rice of course!
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