Beef with Beancurd Sticks and Chinese Mushrooms

This was our dinner tonight. Another Cantonese dish which was also quite simple to prepare.

When you are using dried beancurd sticks and chinese mushrooms (shitake), make sure you soak them in hot water first and wait until they become soft before you use them in your stir-fry. If not, you'll be eating hard beancurd and chewy mushrooms even when you think they are cooked properly. Mushrooms take longer to soften so it'll be good to soak them in hot water first then put them in the fridge overnight. As for the dried beancurd sticks, you can soak them in hot water for around 15 mins before you begin your stir-fry (there's no need to soak these overnight).


Beef with Beancurd Sticks and Chinese Mushrooms

8 Chinese mushrooms (shitake), soak in water overnight
3 pieces of dried beancurd sticks, broken into 1-2 inches long by hand
600g beef fillet
1 tsp garlic, minced
1 small piece of ginger, sliced thinly
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1-2 tbsp Japanese mirin
3 stalks of coriander, chopped up finely - separate stalks from leaves

For beef marinade
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp cornflour
small handful of sesame seeds
pepper

- Soak mushrooms overnight
- Marinade beef with soy sauce, sugar and pepper for 30 mins or overnight
- Before cooking the beef, add in 1 tsp of cornflour on beef; mix well - this is the key to ensuring your beef is tender at the end of the cooking process (always works!)
- At the same time, soak dried beancurd sticks in hot water until it softens
- Squeeze water from mushrooms; cut the stems off the mushrooms as these can be quite hard to chew; cut the mushrooms into thick strips - keep the mushroom water (you can use this later on when you are stir-frying)
- Heat up wok, stir-fry garlic and ginger together
- Add in beef and stir-fry until 80% cooked; dish this up and place aside
- Next, stir-fry the mushrooms and the beancurd sticks; add in mushroom water
- Add in the oyster sauce, miran and coriander stalks; stir-fry until the beancurd sticks are cooked through
- Add beef back into the wok, cook for another 2 minutes
- Lastly, add in the coriander leaves
- Serve immediately

I love the taste and smell of the miran in this dish, and the mushrooms & beancurd go nicely with the beef.