Day 157.
Ever since I made Lynn's fabulous Lemon Chicken, I've wanted to make Mongolian Beef. Yesterday, I gathered enough guts to give it a go.
The results were phenomenal.
I gave myself a pat on the back.
This is an excellent crockpot meal. Since we are gluten free, I needed to play around a bunch of sauces and flavors because we can't use packaged Hoisin sauce. If you can use hoisin sauce, you might want to simplify by following this recipe. But my concoction worked, and surprised Adam and the kids---one of whom has never had "real" Mongolian Beef.
The Ingredients.
Hold on to your hat!
--1 1/2 pounds flank steak
--3 cloves of garlic, minced
--4 sliced green onions--one is for garnish
--1 t dried minced onion (or 1/2 fresh onion, diced very small)
--1/2 cup gluten free soy sauce (I used La Choy)
--1/4 cup white wine
--1/4 cup cooking sherry
--1/2 T white wine vinegar (optional--I forgot to add it!)
--1 t sesame oil
--1 t molasses
--1 t ginger
--1/4 t black pepper
--1 t red chili pepper flakes
--1/2 T peanut butter (if allergic, use black bean paste)
--3 T brown sugar
--1/4 cup cornstarch (to dredge meat--don't add to sauce mixture)
The Directions.
--slice your meat in thin strips and toss in a Ziploc bag with cornstarch.
--add all of the liquid and dried spices to your crockpot, and the peanut butter, and mix well. Add the garlic and three of the sliced green onions. If you are using fresh onion, add that now, too.
--put your meat on top, and toss gingerly to coat.
Cover and cook on low for 4-6 hours. Flank steak is thin and have very little fat, and will cook quickly. There isn't a lot of liquid in this dish, so if your crock tends to cook hot, please check it after 3 hours.
The meat is done when it is no longer pink and has reached desired tenderness. I cooked our meat in a 6qt oval Smart Pot and it was done after 4 hours on low.
The Verdict.
This serves enough to feed 2 hungry adults for dinner. If you have a large family, you're going to need more meat and double the sauce.
Delicious. This is so good---before this year I would not have attempted to make something so "complicated" in a crockpot. But really, the only complicated thing was figuring out what flavors would work and assembling the ingredients---the actual cooking and food preparation was a snap, and the kitchen was clean and mopped at 12noon.
We had all of the ingredients on hand for this meal, except for the meat and the green onion. Much better for our wallets, than take-out, and much, much, much less greasy than take-out. And it was gluten-free!
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