Cooking Lesson #353: Quick Wok-Fried Slippery Beef

…from the California Kitchen

How you doin’? Joan always orders a particular beef dish when she dines out in Chinese restaurants—it’s called Slippery Beef. It has a very tender texture and a velvety smooth mouth feel.
 
Have you ever wondered why beef from your Chinese restaurant tastes so moist and tender? It all comes down to a couple of simple Chinese cooking secrets. You can use this process with beef, chicken and pork. The meat always cooks up succulently with tender results every time. These two techniques are easily done at home and will change the way you make stir-fry dishes forever.
 
Start by tenderizing the beef:

1. Sprinkle 3/4 teaspoon of baking soda over 8 to 12-ounces thinly-sliced inexpensive beef cuts.
2. Toss with fingers and set aside for 30 minutes.
3. Rinse and pat off excess water.
4. Proceed with the next step marinating with wet or dry seasonings or cooked plain. The beef will be tender and soft, “velvet’ like, just like in stir fries made by your favorite Chinese restaurant!

What is velveting? Velveting the meat is the process where you coat the meat in egg white, rice wine vinegar, corn starch and salt and let it marinate for about 30 minutes before cooking. The meat is then briefly cooked in a mixture of boiling water and oil,  then strained and dried before stir-frying. It’s a bit complicated but it really works.
 
How does it work, you ask? This method works by locking in the juices and keeping the meat moist when you cook it over high heat. It is a little more work, but the combination of tenderizing, marinating and quick blanching in hot water ensures moist, succulent, and slippery meat.
 
Okay, let’s get slippery—the meat, that is—and ready for stir-frying.

1. For one pound of sliced beef whisk together one egg white, 1 tablespoon rice vinegar, 1 tablespoon cornstarch and 1 teaspoon kosher salt.
2. Add the tenderized meat (see above) and stir to coat. Cover with food film and marinate in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.
3. Add water (sufficient to cover the meat) plus 1 tablespoon oil to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to medium.
4. Strain the marinade from the meat and discard.
5. Add the marinated sliced beef pieces to the pot and boil until the beef until it is light gray on the outside but still raw in the middle.
6. Strain off excess liquid and proceed with your stir-fry recipe or store meat in an air-tight container in the refrigerator for a few hours until ready to use.

ChefSecret:  This velveting technique works with any type of meat. Here is a recipe that uses beef stir-frying Chinese restaurant-style.
 
Quick Wok-Fried Slippery Beef
 
This was one of the most popular dishes at my China Rose restaurant in Dallas, Texas. Our Chinese food consultant taught us this method at a time we were running a test kitchen while the restaurant was under construction.  Every weekday for 6 months we invited 25 people for a free lunch to test all of our recipes and this became a “fan” favorite. Once the beef is tenderized and made slippery it only takes a few minutes to wok-fry for a great chef-made restaurant-quality meal.
 
Prep time:  15 minutes
Cook time:  6 minutes
Allow about 45 minutes to tenderize and “slippertize.”
Yield:  4 servings
 
Ingredients
2 tablespoons peanut oil
1 pound beef sirloin, cut into 2-inch strips—tenderized and slippery
1-1/2 cups fresh broccoli florets
1/2 cup red bell pepper, cut into matchsticks
1/2 cups carrots, thinly sliced
1 green onion, chopped
1 teaspoon minced garlic
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons sesame seeds, toasted
 
Directions

1. Heat the peanut oil in a large wok or skillet over medium-high heat.
2. Cook and stir the beef until browned, 3 to 4 minutes.
3. Move the beef to the side wall of the wok and add broccoli, bell pepper, carrots, green onion and garlic to the center of the wok.
4. Cook and stir vegetables for 2 minutes.
5. Stir the beef into vegetables and season with soy sauce and sesame seeds.
6. Continue to cook and stir until vegetables are tender, about 2 more minutes.

Quip of the Day: “Covid has taken its toll on everyone. If you’re depressed and feeling useless, just remember it took 20 years and trillions of misspent dollars and 4 U.S. presidents to replace the Taliban with the Taliban. And you thought you were a loser?”
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