Welcome today's guest, Barbara Fradkin. She's sharing a Canadian-Asian fusion recipe for Crispy Ginger Beef and telling us about her new book, THE ANCIENT DEAD. To be entered into a drawing for a free copy, leave at comment at the end of this post. I can't wait to read the book and try the recipe. Please tell us about them, Barbara.
My protagonist Amanda Doucette is a passionate, adventurous foreign aid worker who can’t turn her back on people in trouble. She is currently doing a cross-Canada charity tour, and each book is set in a different iconic location. THE ANCIENT DEAD (January 2021) is set in Alberta’s renowned dinosaur country, where the discovery of buried human bones stirs up old secrets involving her uncle who went missing thirty years ago.
Although Amanda’s work has taken her around the world, she’s never had the chance to develop her own cooking skills. But she is fearless and often plunges in where few would dare. Alberta is famous for its beef as well as its grain products, but when I researched Alberta recipes, I also discovered a recipe for ginger beef made famous by Calgary’s Silver Inn in the 1970s. Its Canadian-Asian fusion seemed perfect for Amanda. Like Amanda, I plunged in where I’d never been and tried out this recipe for the first time. Here are the results, good and the bad.
Ingredients
1 egg
¾ to 1 c. water
1 ¼ c. cornstarch
3 tablespoons flour
½ tablespoon white pepper
2-3 c. oil for deep frying
For Vegetables
1 sweet red bell pepper
1 green bell pepper
6 cloves garlic
chunk of ginger, roughly the size of two thumbs
For Sauce
2 tablespoons white vinegar
3 tablespoons mushroom soy sauce (or dark soy)
1 tablespoon Chinese cooking wine (or cooking sherry)
½ c. water
¼ c. sugar
½ tablespoon crushed chillies (or to taste)
1 tablespoon cornstarch (this is my alteration)
Slice beef into thin strips against the grain. Mix egg, water, cornstarch, flour, and white pepper to make batter, and toss beef in it. Deep-fry strips a few at a time for about 2 minutes and set them aside on paper towelling.
I made three mistakes on this part. First, I used the suggested 1 cup of water in the batter but I think it made it too thin because it didn’t stick to the beef well. I suggest cutting water to ¾ cup. Next, I put too many strips in the oil at once and I didn’t make the oil hot enough. A wok would work better, and make sure the oil is very hot.
Cut all the vegetables including garlic and ginger into julienned strips. Mix together all ingredients for the sauce. Stir fry the vegetables until they are slightly cooked by not soft and then add the sauce. Bring it to a boil, stirring, just until sauce thickens. Add the beef and stir to coat. Serve over rice.
The recipe called for keeping it warm for a couple of hours to bring out the flavours, but I was too hungry and ate it right away. It was delicious! But the beef was soft rather than chewy and slightly crunchy, possibly because of the mistakes I mentioned.
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