Another recipe for you.

 There is a bit of a story to this one. 

Back on the Isle of Man there is a Chinese takeaway just at the end of the main shopping street in our home town of Ramsey. The Mandarin Takeaway. We enjoyed going there, it was close to home and you could watch the chef at work. There was no hidden kitchen, everything happened right there in front of your eyes. There is a big gas fired range with several burners and two or three chefs working away with their woks. Behind them and also to one side were boxes and boxes of ingredients. As they started each new dish you saw them taking a little of this and some of that adding them to the wok and working away, tossing all of the ingredients together. It was noisy and hot in there, the sound of the steel utensils against the edge of the woks, the big fans in the cooker hood drawing out the oily steams and the chefs chattering away to each other as they cooked. Then in what seemed like moments they would be tipping your order into a tray and the girl at the counter would call your number and off home to eat. It had a special kind of magic to it.

The Chinese takeaways we have found here in Timaru I have to say leave a lot to be desired. I ordered lemon chicken in one and took home a tray of chicken nuggets with some sort of sticky sauce from a plastic squeezy bottle poured over it! A far cry from what I was used to back in Ramsey! We still want good fresh Chinese food so had to find our own recipes. And we have had some successes. We've tried various packet mixes and jars but never really fell in love with any of them. I've yet to find a good replacement for the Beef Chow Mein I used to favour. The local Thai restaurant does a good sweet and sour and we have found other new favourites to make at home. 

One of Tony's favourites from the Mandarin take away was Deep Fried Crispy Shredded Beef in Hot Chilli Sauce. I scoured the internet for a substitute. Eventually I found one. Here you go...

Crispy Chilli Beef.

500g Thin cut beef. We use rump and slice it into strips.
1 egg beaten
2-4 table spoons corn starch.
Salt and pepper
Plenty of cooking oil
1 medium onion sliced
Veges (See notes)
1 red chilli finely sliced
1 tea spoon minced ginger
3 cloves garlic crushed
2 table spoons rice wine vinegar
3 table spoons dark soy sauce
2 table spoons tomato puree
3 - 4 table spoons caster sugar
2 table spoons tomato sauce/ ketchup
2 table spoons sweet chilli sauce.

Place the steak into a bowl with the beaten egg and mix well, then add the cornflour and seasonings and stir to ensure the egg soaks up the flour and the meat is coated.

Heat plenty of oil in a large frying pan or wok and cook the beef in batches. Your oil needs to be hot, We usually work 3 batches. Drop in the first batch and try to spread it out a little, but don't stir fry as this will reduce the crispiness. It generally takes about 5-6 minutes per batch. Give it only about 3 stirs to separate the pieces. Once it is dark brown and crispy lift it out with a slotted spoon or tongs and keep warm while you cook the next batch. You may need to add more oil.

Once all of the beef is cooked add more oil and reduce the heat to medium. Add the sliced onion and cook until it begins to soften, then add the other veg and stir fry for a couple more minutes. Next add the chilli, ginger and garlic stir frying for another minute before adding the remainder of the ingredients.  Allow it to warm and bubble for a minute or two until the sauce begins to thicken. Add the beef back in and give it a stir to coat the beef in the sauce.

Serve over rice or noodles.

Notes.

No, it's not keto friendly. Yes I've replaced the sugar with stevia and I could make my own sweet chilli sauce using stevia. 

The veges.

The recipe I found didn't mention any veg except the onion, but the dish Tony used to get back in Ramsey had carrot batons in it and sometimes there would be sliced capsicum, depending on which chef cooked it. I have experimented with various veg, but usually just add carrots or capsicum. Last night I was too tired to mess about chopping veg so just threw in a couple of hand full of ready sliced coleslaw. (Without the dressing of course). YUM! We'll do that again!

The beef.

As I mentioned, we use rump but you could use any beef that you would normally use to stir fry.

Don't stir fry though. Do your best to separate the strips but let them sit for a while then have another go after a good minute or two. I made the mistake of keeping it moving one time and we got soggy beef not crispy beef.

The sauce.

Once the beef and veg are cooked everything happens very fast. I prepare all of the ingredients and have them ready to go. I mix all of the liquids and pastes into a jug with the sugar and have it ready to add all at once.

We have played with the sauce recipe, reducing the sugar content, the original had 6 - 7 spoons of sugar! I'm very tempted to omit the ketchup/tomato sauce next time...

We used to serve it over rice. When we made it last night we didn't bother, we just had a big bowl of crispy beef in tangy chilli sauce. It was delicious.