Mongolian Beef, Chef G. Style

Hi folks, Chef G. here.  It has only been a day since my last episode, which makes this post unprecedented in the annals of Chef G. Cooking Channel history.  Let's just say, "I'm happier than a religious figure who has risen from the dead to be entertaining the world once again."

I'm not claiming to be a true religious figure but, let's face it, I DO have a huge cult-like following.

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I've never been to Mongolia, and the only things I know about the Mongolian culture is that they know how to endure cold weather, they herd yaks, and they pretty much invented yurts.

Chef G. from Outer Mongolia.  Way, way out of Outer Mongolia.

A yak

A yurt

I assume Mongolians invented Mongolian Beef too, but I can't be sure of that.  I was more than a little disappointed when I learned General Tso's Chicken--a staple at every Chinese restaurant in America--does not even exist in China.  In the same way, could it be that Mongolian Beef has no relationship to authentic Mongolian cooking?  Probably, but I don't even want to know the truth about that.

Mongolian Beef is one of my go-to dishes when I eat at Asian restaurants--along with Szechuan Chicken, Pork Lo Mein, Sushi, and any Thai dish that includes noodles.

I'm going to assume AUTHENTIC Mongolian chefs use yak meat, not cow meat, when cooking over an open flame inside their yurts.  I have no access to yak meat here in Minnesota, and I don't have a yurt.  Therefore, I'll substitute cow meat and a cheap electric stove in a warm kitchen for this recipe.  

The first step is to add 1/4 cup of corn starch to 1/2 lb. of thinly sliced sirloin and shake it around in a zip-lock baggie.  (Similar to how my mom used to make Shake 'n Bake in the 1970's.)  Then stir fry the beef in a very hot pan.  When browned on both sides, set the beef aside.

Next, mix 1/2 cup of brown sugar with 1/2 cup of soy sauce.

Add minced ginger and garlic to the same bowl.

Whisk it all together

Here's a picture of the beef I set aside.

The next step is to add slivered carrots and sliced onions to the brown sugar, soy sauce, ginger & garlic mixture.  Cook for about two minutes.

Prepare some delicious Jasmine rice according to directions on the package.

Get some green onions and red pepper flakes ready.  They'll be used for garnish and extra flavor.

Add the reserved beef to the pan.  It will be looking delicious after a few minutes of stir frying.

Add the green onions and red chilis.  Then serve over the rice.

I'll tell you one thing right now.  My Mongolian Beef was delicious, whether it was authentic or not.  The meat was tender and perfectly browned, the sauce was absolutely perfect, the aromatic vegetables were aromatic, the carrots were a scrumptious addition, and the heat was just riiiiight.  I congratulated myself after eating it.  You can congratulate me too after you've cooked the recipe yourself.

Chef G. Makes A Sandwich

Hi folks, Chef G. here!  After a flurry of excellent food blogging back in June, I took a long, well-deserved summer vacation which included a couple of bicycle trips and lots of laziness.  Today, it's time to get back to the serious business of being a celebrity chef, and I'm surprisingly happy about going to work again.  In fact, I'm happier than a film buff who just watched five Coen Brothers movies in a row.  I'm happier than a drunken wine aficionado visiting Napa Valley.  I'm happier than a tyrannosaurus rex chowing down on mastodon meat.  

I could go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on about how happy I am, but I'm not going to.  That would be excessive.  I mean, all of my millions of fans know that I'm a humble man, a man of few words, a man who wouldn't go to such great lengths to lengthen a paragraph with unnecessary verbiage and dumb jokes.

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Today's topic is sandwiches.  I've made several of them in past episodes.  Off hand, I can remember putting the unique Chef G. spin on a Juicy Lucy, a Reuben, a pizza burger, a grilled cheese with ham, a BLT and a chicken salad sandwich.  You can look up those recipes someday if you get really bored.  

I like sandwiches because good ones contain something from all of the food groups.  The BEST ones are heavy on the #1 most important food group--meat.

Last week, Mrs. Chef G. and I brought my dad to a fast-food restaurant called "Freddies Frozen Custard & Steak Burgers" in Waterloo, Iowa.  To my surprise, my dad ordered a Pork Tenderloin Sandwich.  It was one of the few items on the menu other than variations on "steak burgers."  (By the way, what they call "steak burgers" looked and tasted an awful lot like what I call "hamburgers."  Don't worry, though, I didn't go so far as to register a complaint with management about it.)  

Anyway, my dad's pork tenderloin sandwich is what gave me the idea to try making one of those middle American delicacies for my cooking blog.  I've had one of those monsters in the past, and it was okay at best.  However, that thing my dad was eating looked a lot better than my Freddies Original Double, which consisted of not one, but two patties of steak burger.  Maybe a PTS was worth a try?

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It seems small town diners in states like Texas, Oklahoma, Iowa and Indiana take great pride in their versions of the Pork Tenderloin Sandwich--especially when it comes to how far they can extend the breaded greasy meat beyond the bun.

Here are a couple of PTS pictures I stole from the internet.

I think they try to use small hamburger buns to emphasize the largeness of the meat.

No bun on earth could cover this thing.  In the Pork Tenderloin Sandwich world, bigger is better, I guess.

Chef G. F--ks Up and Settles for a Substitute Sandwich

Note the humiliation and dumbfoundedness on Chef G.'s face after he realized he wasn't infallible after all.

Oh yeah, I planned all along to slice up a big pork tenderloin, pound the slices into flat slabs, dip the slabs into egg & milk & bread crumbs, and fry them in hot oil.  

Unfortunately, this afternoon I found that I forgot to defrost the pork tenderloin I had in the freezer.  As a result, everything I've written about pork tenderloin sandwiches so far is all for nothing. 

Never one to waste perfectly good words and paragraphs, I could not bring myself to hit the "Cancel Post" button.  So, I scrambled to find ingredients to make a substitute sandwich.  Luckily, I had enough stuff in my refrigerator to make a passable Philadelphia Cheese Steak Sandwich.  Here are a few photos of how I made my substitute sandwich--they're a testament to my impromptu cooking genius:

I sliced some sirloin steak as thin as possible.

Onions are the second most important ingredient after the steak.

I didn't have the third most important ingredient for my ad lib recipe--that would be green peppers.  Therefore, salt and pepper became the third and fourth most important ingredients.

Heat up some olive oil.

Get some shredded cheese ready.  Provolone is the cheese of choice for Philadelphia Cheese Steak experts.  I didn't have Provolone.  In the heat of the moment, I had to go with Mozzarella.

Slice a decent bakery bun in half and assemble the Philly Cheese Steak.

The meat and onions are ready to scoop onto the bun.

I sprinkled the Mozzarella on top and chowed down on one of my best sandwiches ever.

So, I guess you could say I pulled the old bait & switch trick.  Sorry about that.  Chef G.'s pork tenderloin sandwich will have to wait for a future episode.  I believe I have the ability to make the biggest one anybody has ever seen.