Wok Wednesdays: Stir-Fried Beef with Broccoli

Beef and Broccoli may have been one of the first dishes I ordered when dining at Diamond Head Restaurant, one of the two local Chinese restaurant in Salisbury, MD, back in the early 80s.  Beef and Broccoli = Benign.  Which is why this is listed on the last page of their menu (specifically, "American Menu") at the local Taste of China in Charlottesville, VA, present day. 

Taste of China is one of the more authentic restaurants I've eaten outside of NYC, San Francisco and Vancouver, thanks to the elusive Peter Chang, known in the southeast coast for Sichuan cuisine. I have not ordered Beef and Broccoli since 1985, but I was excited to try this recipe since it's one vegetable the kids would eat seven days a week. And it called for fermented black beans, an ingredient I've been wanting to have in my tool box since my Seattle friend,  Lisa Wong introduced me to them in the early 90s.  Knowing this, I knew this recipe was already going to have more depth in flavor!

Main ingredients are lean flank steak, garlic, ginger, hoisin sauce, soy sauce, dark soy sauce, rice wine, sesame oil, onions, fermented black beans and cornstarch. I used both red and white onions for color. 

Fermented black beans are tricky to find in the Asian grocery since there is a similar item called black bean sauce in a jar (paste form) which is something different. Then, the same ingredient is also called fermented soy beans, found in a vacuum sealed plastic bag. I found this on the bottom aisle, below the dried noodle section.  Who would have thunk?  Oh, I did add extra black beans for good measure. I left some pieces whole.

First, the strips of flank steak along with the sauces, aromatics,cornstarch and sesame oil are mixed in a bowl.

Then, quickly seared...

Separately, stir fry the onions...

In the last minute, meat and the blanched broccoli are stir-fried together.

I would absolutely make this recipe again. It's a healthy dish with our favorite vegetable that the entire family enjoyed!

The rich, dark hoisin sauce and fermented black beans gave much depth in flavor to this all time favorite dish.

Wok Wednesdays: Chinese American Shrimp With Lobster Sauce

"Wow, this is really good" is what my 10 year old said as he polished his plate of the Shrimp with Lobster Sauce and jasmine rice.  This is saying a lot for a child who says to us he doesn't want to go to any more restaurants that ends in "-ese", like Chinese, Vietnamese, and Japanese.  I was pleasantly surprised that he didn't question the black beans or, for that matter, the green stuff (scallions). 

I really enjoyed making this recipe since it called for shrimp. My husband is slightly allergic to shrimp, so I usually order shrimp dishes in restaurants and seldom cook it at home. I just can't get enough of shrimp.  I have always wanted to learn how to cook with fermented beans so this was a great start to Wok Wednesdays.


From start to finish, the majority of the time spent in preparing this dish is in the prep work ( mincing and chopping) which include gathering and organizing the ingredients. Mise en place is essential when cooking in a wok, when the entire cooking process is rapid fire from the get go.  

Main ingredients:  shrimp, pork, garlic, ginger, fermented black beans, clam juice, thai chillies and scallions.  And one farm fresh egg from our chicken coop.

Unlike baking, my cooking set up is usually not this structured. I will look up 1-2 recipes of a particular meal, and come up with my own concoction. I suppose you can call it my creative outlet.   Needless to say, the organization above fed my OCD-ness. I usually don't have the patience to follow a cooking recipe verbatim. But today was different.  Kind of. Made some improvisations. I ended up buying a pound and a half of shrimp, rather than a pound.  I seem to think cooking a bigger serving is better.  I doubled the amount of garlic and ginger since I love both flavors. I used very little peppers so that it would be kid friendly. I substituted flour for cornstarch. According to Google, the ratio is 3 parts flour to 1 part cornstarch, but I  hesitated putting that much flour since I wanted to make sure I had plenty of "lobster sauce".

Oh, and I couldn't find clam juice at the grocery store. I've been walking around in crutches the past four weeks due to foot surgery, and I was just too damn tired to make another round down the aisles.  Passing the Italian section where I normally hang out, I grabbed a can of clam sauce thinking it would be a good substitute.  I didn't realize until five minutes before show time that the can was full of clams, parsley with a mucous-like consistency of broth.  Ew. Plan B was chicken broth, left over from holiday cooking.  It worked just fine.

Pan searing shrimp:

Sauteeing pork with ginger and garlic...

Combining shrimp and pork, a beaten egg, and scallions...

I would absolutely make this recipe again. My son loved it. My husband had a serving, despite his allergic reaction to shrimp. He said it was worth taking an anti-histamine. Next time, I would add more chilli peppers and fermented black beans.  I loved the freshness of the sauce from the boiled shrimp shells and freshly sliced ginger.

I really enjoy the fast paced cooking of the stir fry. Like the Neapolitan pizza that cooks at high temperatures in 60-90 seconds, much of the freshness, texture, and  flavor remain in stir fries.