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Today I'm making dashi beef with mushrooms.
Now, this dashi sauce that I'm using is a mushroom based,
so we thought combining with fresh mushrooms would be
a great combination.
The two mushrooms that we're using are baby white pearl mushrooms,
which are whole and you just leave them that way,
and sliced shiitakes.
Both of these have very different flavors and textures,
so they really compliment each other nicely, but if you're a mushroom lover,
you want to try other varieties as well, go ahead.
So, this recipe called for sirloin strips.
So, this is already cut up and ready to cook.
Or you can buy a sirloin steak and do it yourself.
One of the most important steps, if not the most important in any stir fry
is to have all your mise en place ready to go before you get started
because it is a very quick and easy process.
I've done that, everything's ready to go.
So, what I want to do first is heat the pan.
First I'm going to add some vegetable oil to the pan
and give that a quick tilt, just evenly coated all over the bottom.
Now, I'm going to heat that on high.
There we go.
And while that's heating let's move over to the beef and do a few things here.
So, I'm adding to the beef some soy sauce and some sugar.
Now, what the soy sauce does is obviously adds a lot of flavor
and it's going to help keep it moist,
and the sugar is going to coat the pieces of beef a little bit.
And that sugar's going to caramelize to get a nice sear on the meat
when we're cooking it.
And all you have to do is work it in like that, real real quickly.
It's already just about absorbed in there and it's really ready to cook.
So, while the heat--while this pan continues to heat up,
I'm going over to wash my hands and I'll be right back.
This pan looks like it heated just right, so now we're going to put in the beef.
I'm cooking this actually in two separate batches.
You'll hear a nice sizzle when the beef goes into the pan.
And I'm going to cook it in two batches just so that I get
a nice even sear on the beef and I don't over crowd it in the pan.
We'll need to cook this about three to four minutes, flipping it in between,
so that we get it cooked on both sides.
Okay, I've cooked these in two batches and as you see we have
a nice brown coating on the meat.
Now, we're adding a little bit.
Just leave those juices right in the pan, add a little bit of--more oil
to your wok or your skillet, and in go the veggies.
So, we're adding these separately and we're going to cook these all together,
both mushrooms along with the onions and the peppers.
Now, these don't take very long either, and really this depends very much
on how well cooked you want them.
You want the mushrooms to be soft and cooked throughout,
and the onions and the peppers to your liking really.
So, give that a quick stir.
Keep those moving so that they're coated with the oil and the seasoning
in the bottom of the pan while you're cooking it.
And this'll take about two to three minutes.
Okay, these veggies look ready to me, so the next step is to add the beef
back into the pan with all the juices that are part of that
along with some dashi sauce.
Now, dashi in Japanese just means stock,
and a dashi stock can be made of many things.
It can be made of seaweed base.
It can be made of a mushroom concentration base,
and that's what this is.
This is a mushroom dashi sauce.
It's got what is sometimes referred to as that fifth taste,
which is called umami.
It's a very savory flavor and it adds a ton of flavor to your stir fries.
Very good.
So, this just really needs to be cooked,
stirred together a little bit just to heat it throughout,
to make sure that everything is well coated.
And I think that's where we're at right now.
We're just about there.
Now, the most important thing to remember here is that
the mise en place are getting everything ready in advance
before you get started is very very important
because once you get started cooking
the whole process takes very very little time.
So, that's what makes it a quick and easy week night meal
and one that you'll all enjoy.