The Crispy Beef
500ml of peanut oil
250g of Topside Beef
2 tablespoons of cornstarch
The Random Veg:
1 cup pre shredded carrots
Sauce:
80ml of rice wine vinegar.
2 teaspoons of sugar
2 teaspoons of soy sauce (Kikoman C00039)
1 clove of finely chopped garlic
1 finely chopped birdseye chilli
In a bowl, mix together all of the ingredients for the sauce.
Remove all of the fat from the meat and cut it into thin strips.
Coat the beef with a generous dusting of cornstarch and press into the beef so it sticks with your hands or a teatowel.
Add the peanut oil to the wok and heat until hot. Make sure to add enough oil so that the beef will be virtually deep fried. (Alternatively use a deep fat fryer)
Carefully drop the beef in the wok and allow to fry for about 5 minutes or until it browns.
Drain beef on some kitchen paper/drain rack.
In another wok (or using the same wok without the oil) use a tablespoon of peanut oil and heat until hot.
Add the carrots and stir for about 2 minutes. Add the beef and then the rest of the sauce ingredients.
Stir together and serve immediately.
The beef coating now softens a little with the introduction of the sauce and you may have noticed that because you are using topside beef you don’t actually need to shred the beef at all. Once cooked the nature of topside makes the beef stringy when cooked in the pressure of the cornstarch coating.
In a takeaway the beef is usually part cooked and stored in a freezer/fridge as and when you order it. It is then refried in the deep fat and the sauce & carrots are added on top to slowly soften the beef by the time you get home/it gets delivered.