A delicious, quick Chinese dish of Szechuan-style beef with noodles, it's the perfect meal when you're pushed for time or can't face the thought of spending hours in the kitchen.
Szechuan for the money
Szechuan is now more commonly known as as Sichuan in English versions of its name, a south-central province of China. This spicy Sichuan beef with noodles (with apologies to Elvis) reflects its cuisine that is hotter and spicier than many other Chinese cuisines, probably because hot chillies grow easily in its warm, humid climate. Perhaps best known for its hotpot and "sizzling" dishes that take longer to prepare, this is one is a quick, stir-fry dish.
I could—and have occasionally—made the marinade/sauce from scratch. But, frankly, by the time you've tracked down the douban (fermented broad bean and chili paste) and douchi (fermented black beans), to create your marinade-slash-sauce, it's no longer an easy-to-make dish. Not to mention that if you buy all of the sauce's ingredients, you either need to cook a lot of Chinese food in a short time or end up chucking it out.
No, much better to buy a good readymade version such as Lee Kum Kee's Sichuan Style Hot & Spicy Stir-fry Sauce for these spicy Sichuan beef with noodles. It's widely available and you'll get a fair few meals out of a small jar. That said, this recipe uses it slightly differently from a traditional stir-fry.
One of the biggest Western fallacies about Chinese stir-fry cooking is that everything is chopped up and simply chucked into a wok at once. This might be the case in some dishes (and convenient for supermarkets selling overpriced bags of shredded cheap vegetables to punters in search of a stir fry) but this isn't one of them. When things go into the wok has a particular order in this dish, for good reason. Similarly, the wok has its shape for reason: its design means that you can move ingredients around between the cooler edges and hotter centre as part of clever cooking, as with this dish.
I'm using the egg noodles tradition used in Sichuan cooking here, but you can use other types of noodles if you prefer.
This recipe serves 2 to 3 diners. You can easily scale it up for larger groups.
Shopping list
for the spicy Sichuan beef with noodles
2 thin, lean beef steaks, sliced into "ribbons" about 1cm wide
1 large brown onion, quartered and segmented (see below)
1 large red bell pepper, cut vertically into slices
3 cloves of garlic, finely grated
About a thumb's length of fresh ginger, grated
Sichuan Style Hot & Spicy Stir-fry Sauce (or comparable), approx 3 tbspns
About 3 tbspns of sunflower oil
1 tspn of sesame oil (or "wok oil")
420g of fresh egg noodles
Approx. 2 tbspns dark soy sauce
Approx. 150g mushrooms (I've used a mix of Asian mushroom varieties here, but sliced closed cup mushrooms work perfectly well)
Salt and black pepper to taste
The pak choi side dish
1 fresh small pak choi per diner (or one large between 2 diners)
A dash of light soy sauce
Cooking Method
for the prep
Slice the lean beef steak into "ribbons". Place in a sealable container. Add 2 tbspns of the Sichuan Style Hot & Spicy Stir-fry Sauce. Gently mix it into the beef. Add a couple of tbspns of dark soy sauce, salt and pepper and mix it all thoroughly. Cover and rest in the fridge. Ideally, do this at least one or two hours before you cook, but it's actually fine if you only have 20 mins. This is not one of those marinades that works well if you marinade too long e.g. overnight
Slice the red pepper vertically and slice the mushrooms irregularly. If using mushroom varieties such as shiitake or oyster mushrooms, don't slice them, but cut randomly
Cut the onion vertically into quarters (or sixths if on the larger side). Then, literally peel open the layers of the onion
With the pak choi, slice off the bottom and pull the leaves apart
the dish
Remove the steak ribbons from the fridge and allow to return to room temperature as you heat the oils in a wok or deep-sided pan
When the oil is hot, add the garlic and ginger. Stir these as they sizzle. Before they brown, add the red bell pepper, deploying the same stir-fry technique for 3 to 4 mins or until the pepper shows the first signs of softening
Add the onions, continuing with the same stirring (or tossing the ingredients) for another 3 or 4 mins.
When the onions become slightly transparent (but not yet browned), push the ingredients in the wok towards its edges; up against its "sides". To the empty centre, add the beef and allow to simply sit for a minute or so. Add the additional 1 tbspn of Sichuan sauce to the top of the beef, and douse it with a few tbspns of dark soy sauce. NB: if you prefer a spicy dish that's less fiery, don't add the Sichuan sauce
Stir the beef ribbons, ensuring they seal on all sides before pulling the other ingredients down from the sides of the wok and stirring everything together. Keep stirring to prevent sticking
When the beef is half-cooked, add the mushrooms, stirring them in with the other ingredients. As the mushrooms begin to cook, they will release liquid. You want this to happen because it will make the "sauce". If your ingredients seem a little dry, add a little additional soy sauce to increase the liquid in the base of the wok
Finally, add the egg noodles and mix everything together with all the other, stirring and/or tossing almost continuously. Your wok dish should be ready in 4 or 5 mins (but this will vary according to the heat in the wok)
Once the wok contents are cooked, plate and serve with a simple side dish of steamed pak choi (which, of course, you've timed to be ready) dressed with a dab of light soy sauce
Alternatives
This is one that really does have a vegetarian (actually vegan) option based in tradition: Mapo tofu. It's essentially a version of this dish that uses tofu in lieu of meat but without some of the additional ingredients used here. Tofu a great vegan alternative to the beef, but if you opt for rice noodles instead of egg noodles.
There are pescatarian versions of this dish that I adore. But I'm going to detail them later since they are slightly different in the sauce aspect.
Pairings
I generally enjoy this dish with a good cold beer or, as tonight, with a mineral water with a dab of lime juice. It is also definitely one I'd like Karel to pair with relevant wines. There is something very "clean" about the flavours in this dish that I know he would zoom in on and find exactly the right wines. Watch this space...
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