Red-cooked beef with noodles

4 Servings

Ingredients

Quantity Ingredient
1½ pounds Beef, in 2\" cubes, any random stew meat will do
2 Inches fresh ginger root, chopped coarsely
1 Bulb garlic (at least 10 cloves), slightly crushed and peeled
5 Scallions, 3 cut in three pieces, 2 chopped coarsely
½ cup Peanut oil
2 tablespoons Hot pepper paste (i use sambal oeleck)
1 tablespoon Stonewall salsa habanero (optional)
6 Pickled tabasco peppers chopped (optional)
3 Serrano peppers, thinly sliced (optional)
12 Thai peppers, thinly sliced (optional)
1 teaspoon Szechwan peppercorns (whole)
1 teaspoon Sugar
3 tablespoons Soy sauce (preferably dark low sodium if you can get it)
1 pounds Noodles (preferably fresh but most anything will do)

Directions

Adapted from Mrs. Chiang's Szechwan Cookbook, by Ellen Schrecker Posted by Jon Ziegler, with notes and commentary. This is a pretty easy way to make a very flavorful, tender beef stew. It can be as hot as you like to make it.

When cooking for normal mortals, I use about 1T of sambal oeleck and none of the optional stuff, but I thought this potluck version worked quite well. 1. Heat your pan (I use a wok) over a high flame, then put in the peanut oil. It is hot enough to cook when a few small wisps of smoke appear. 2. Toss in the garlic, chopped ginger, hot pepper paste, Szechwan pepper, and other hot stuff. Stir it around for 15-30 seconds, enough to mix it up with the oil and sizzle a bunch. Then put in the large scallion pieces, stir a bit, and then add the beef. 3. Stir-fry the beef for about a minute, making sure that the oil gets at all the surfaces. This should be pretty vigorous tossing. 4. Add the soy and sugar, stir-frying for another couple of minutes. 5. Add water to cover the meat, and bring to a boil.

Turn down the heat, cover, and let simmer for at least 1½ hours, until the meat has become very soft. 6. Cook up the noodles. 7. Sprinkle the chopped scallions over the beef and serve. Notes: a. The best way to serve this is to make it too hot for anybody else to eat, and then consume it yourself over the course of a couple of days. It makes a truly fine breakfast. b. The second best way to serve this is to give each person a bowl of noodles, put beef and sauce over the top, and sprinkle with more scallions if desired. c. I usually transfer from the wok to a good simmering pot. I like to let it go for several hours at low heat. I have used a crockpot several times, but I have found that it concentrates the Szechwan pepper flavor to an unusual degree. d. This recipe can be doubled or tripled easily. Just do the fast stir-fry stuff in multiple batches, unless you have a really powerful stove. And don't simply multiply the peanut oil for the stir-fry; use less. e. This makes good eating cold. It is also a very easy dish to prepare in advance and then heat up (microwave works fine). It freezes fine. f. Szechwan peppercorns are a strange and extraordinary Chinese spice. They are not hot, they are a little bit like black peppercorns, but not much. They have a strange, aromatic fragrance, and cannot be substituted for. Don't even try. If you don't have them, leave them out. Jon Ziegler <jonz@...> (From the First Bay Area Chile Heads HotLuck) Source: INTERNET RECIPES FROM CHILE-HEADS DIGEST From Glen Hosey's Recipe Collection Program, hosey@...

Posted to MM-Recipes Digest V4 #159 by Walt Gray <waltgray@...> on Jun 07, 1997

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