Colm O'Gorman: My recipe for crispy shredded beef with honey and chilli sauce

This recipe easily serves two to three people.

I adore Chinese-style crispy shredded beef, especially when accompanied by a sticky, spicy sauce. When I order it as a takeaway though, I often find that, as it has been covered in sauce and sat in a container, the beef is a little soggy by the time I get it home and the sauce is often just that little bit too sweet. The only solution really was to come up with my own recipe and make it at home.

So, here it is. Thin strips of beef, marinated in garlic, ginger, soy sauce and pepper, then coated in corn flour and twice fried until it is golden and crispy, served with a spicy, sweet, tangy sauce. This is sensational. All the ingredients you need are easily available locally, but if you do not have any black Chinese vinegar, you can use rice vinegar or white wine vinegar instead. This sauce is also fantastic with chicken wings. You will find my recipe for air fried or oven baked chicken wings on ieFood, just follow that method to make the wings and serve them with this sauce. I promise, you will love it!

I use sirloin or rump round steak for this dish. Slice it into thin strips no more than one centimetre thick and marinate it before you coat it in cornflour. Twice frying the beef gives you the best result. Fry it in batches, it needs no more two minutes each time, and in no time at all before you have golden, beautifully crisp, delicious, shredded beef to serve with your sauce.

Served with some plain boiled rice, this recipe easily serves two to three people.

Crispy Shredded Beef

recipe by:Colm O'Gorman

Thin strips of beef, marinated in garlic, ginger, soy sauce and pepper, then coated in corn flour and twice fried until it is golden and crispy, served with a spicy, sweet, tangy sauce - this is sensational.

Servings

2

Preparation Time

 1 hours 5 mins

Cooking Time

 20 mins

Total Time

 1 hours 25 mins

Course

 Main

Cuisine

 Asian

Ingredients

• Meat and veg

• 400g sirloin steak

• 2cm fresh ginger root

• 2 plump cloves of garlic

• 2 tsp soy sauce

• 2 tsp toasted sesame oil

• 1 tsp ground white pepper

• 1 litre sunflower oil

• 1 egg

• 100g cornflour

• 1 onion

• ½ red pepper

• ½ green pepper

• Sauce

• 1 clove garlic

• 1 cm fresh ginger root

• 1 red chilli

• 30 ml Chinese black vinegar

• 60ml rice wine or sherry

• 30ml soy sauce

• 20ml honey

• Juice of a lemon

Method

1. Trim any excess fat from the beef and cut it into thin strips, about one centimetre thick is perfect. Peel and grate the ginger and the garlic and combine those in a bowl with the soy sauce, sesame oil and ground white pepper. Add the beef and coat it well in the marinade. Let it sit in the bowl for about thirty minutes.

2. Wash and cut the peppers into strips, and peel and slice the onion. Set aside for now.

3. Peel and grate the garlic and ginger for the sauce. Wash and finely chop the chilli, if you like a bit of extra chilli kick, use the whole chilli including the seeds and pith. If you want a milder sauce, discard those and just use the flesh of the chilli. Heat a splash of sesame oil in a small pan over a high heat. Reduce the heat to medium and add the garlic and ginger. Sauté for a minute and add the chopped chilli. Cook for one more minute and add the vinegar, rice wine, soy sauce and honey. Stir to combine everything well and bring to a simmer. Let the pot bubble gently away while you cook the beef.

4. Crack the egg into the beef and mix it into the marinated beef. Put the cornflour into a wide bowl or a large plate. Now dredge the strips of beef in the corn flour a few at a time, making sure they are well coated. Shake any excess cornflour off the strips as you go and make sure the strips are separated. Heat the sunflower oil in a large pan, bringing it to 180 Celsius.

5. Carefully add the coated beef to the pan and fry it for no more than two minutes. Do this in two batches to avoid crowding the pan. When the first batch has had a minute or two in the hot oil, remove it using a slotted spoon and transfer it to a plate lined with kitchen towel. Bring the oil back up to 180 Celsius and repeat to fry the second batch. Again, transferring it to a plate lined with kitchen towel to drain once you take it out of the oil.

6. Heat a wok or heavy based pan over a medium/high heat and add a tablespoon of sesame oil. Stir fry the sliced onions for a minute and add the sliced peppers. Stir fry until both are just cooked through but retain some crispness. Set aside until you are ready to serve.

7. Bring the sunflower oil back up to 180 Celsius and give the beef its second fry. Again, it only needs a minute or two in the hot oil and you can fry it all in one go this time. Drain the beef again on some kitchen towel while you finish the sauce and assemble the dish.

8. Add the lemon juice to the sauce, by now it should have reduced quite a bit and have a light syrup like consistency. Taste and add more lemon juice or soy sauce to your own preference.

9. Mix the stir-fried vegetables and the crispy beef and serve them up on a platter or big plate. Drizzle over the sauce, coating as much of the beef as possible. Garnish with some thinly sliced red chilli and chopped spring onions or coriander. Serve immediately.