Vietnamese Beef with Mushrooms and Snow Peas

I’ve been craving Chinese food. I wanted to go to Panda Express yesterday but my wife talked me into tacos. So, today I asked her to go onto the internet and find me a Chinese recipe that she thought sounded good. She came up with Vietnamese Beef & Snow Peas.

She said the snow peas sounded good. I read the recipe and then went looking at beef broccoli, kung pao beef, and some others and decided to kinda make one up. To make the wife happy, I left the name but added mushrooms.

You know I love fresh mushrooms. Then I added some fresh green onions. Sirloin is on sale this week so that’s the meat I used.

I gotta say, it came out fantastic!

Mix together:
1 lb thinly sliced beef (I marinated it in Italian dressing while I cut the veggies)
1 tbsp corn starch
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp oyster sauce (store bought)
1 tbsp wine
1 tbsp minced garlic

Pour 2 tbsp sesame oil in wok and stir fry the above mix until beef is no longer red.
Move it to a dish and pour another 2 tbsp sesame oil in wok.
Stir fry (about 6 minutes):
½ lb snow peas
½ lb mushroom slices
Two chopped (sliced) green onions
One sliced and seeded green bell pepper

Add the meat back into wok with veggies.
Add:
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp corn starch
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
¼ tsp black pepper
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp msg (accent) (optional)
2 tbsp oyster sauce

Cook and stir until thick and bubbly.
Serve over rice. I cook my rice in chicken broth

I loved it and my wife liked it too.
Mmmmm!
Enjoy!

Tournedos Chasseur

When WinCo opened in Hemet, California, they had beef tenderloin on sale for less than $3 a pound. I couldn’t pass it up and bought two full tenderloins. I wish I had bought more. The first one I cooked on the grill then sliced like a prime rib. It was great. The second one I spent the time to strip off all the “shark skin” and sliced into some nice filet mignon.

I found a recipe that really turned out fantastic. It’s from my Grand Diplome Cooking Course books (vol 15, p 56) that I picked up at a garage sale for $20. This collection of twenty books was from a magazine ad for the Dunbury Press in the early 70's. You order the first book “Absolutely FREE” then you get one book a month for the next 19 months at $4.45 plus shipping and handling. So, the whole set costs just about a hundred bucks in 1972. I saw them on E-Bay between $34.95 and $124.95.

Chausser means Hunter Style which is short for onions and mushrooms. Shallots and fresh mushrooms to be exact, but we didn’t have any of those. Regular white onion and canned mushrooms had to do. It also called for a teaspoon and a half of tomato paste. We used ketchup. We did have the wine. It was served on a croute (fried bread) and fried taters (it called for Pomme de Parisienne).

Here’s the recipe:

Tournedos Chasseur

4 tournedos steak, cut 1 - 1 ½ inches thick
4 slices white bread, crust removed. Cut into circles the same size as tournedos (for croutes)
4 tablespoons oil and butter, mixed (for frying)
½ cup white wine
1 teaspoon tarragon
1 tablespoon chopped parsley

For sauce
1 cup (1/4 lb) mushrooms
2 tablespoons butter
2 shallots, finely chopped
2 teaspoons flour
1 ½ teaspoons tomato paste
1 cup well-flavored beed stock
salt and pepper


Method

To make the sauce; trim the mushroom stems level with the caps and finely slice the caps. In a small skillet or frying pan heat butter and cook shallott gently until soft; add mushrooms and saute until lightly brown, stirring so mixture does not burn. Stir in flour and, after a few seconds, add tomato paste, stock and seasoning. Bring to boil, stirring, and simmer 10-15 minutes until sauce is glossy and slightly thickened.

In a heavy skillet heat half the oil and butter, fry croutes on both sides until golden brown, drain on paper towels and reserve.

Wipe out the pan, heat the remaining oil and butter and fry tournedos briskly for 2 -3 minutes on each side for a rare steak; sprinkle with seasoning after turning them. Set each tournedos on a croute, arrange on a platter and keep warm.

Discard any fat from the pan, ad white wine to the pan, stir to dissolve the juices and simmer 1 - 2 minutes. Add mushroom sauce, simmer 1 -1 2 minutes, add the herbs, taste for seasoning and spoon over tournedos. Serve very hot with Parisienne potatoes.

Hope you like it.