- I'm Kevin Pang. - I'm Jeffrey Pang. - Today's episode of "Hunger Pangs" can be described in two
words, Mongolian beef - Hit the music. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - We have breaking news for you. Mongolian beef is not from Mongolia. In fact, we never had this growing up in Hong Kong right? - Yes of course, because that
is American Chinese food. - It's American Chinese food. And in fact, there's a lot of these dishes that are new to us. We never really had crab Rangoon or chop suey growing up. But the thing is, we've learned to love and
appreciate American Chinese food. And Mongolian beef is
one of our favorites. It's got everything that we love. We've got crispy beef, we've got the garlic and the ginger. And you love scallions? - Yes.
- Yeah - Scallion, I love scallion
more than the beef. (Kevin chuckling) - You love scallion more than beef. Okay, so let's talk
about what we have here. We've got four scallions. We're gonna cut this
in two different ways. So the green part, we're gonna cut into one inch pieces and the white part we're gonna mince. We like these in to be nice big pieces because it's going to wilt with the beef. And we're gonna put that
in two separate bowls. The green parts are gonna be in one bowl and then the white
parts, we're gonna mince, beautiful mincing work. So we're gonna put that
into a separate bowl. To the white parts of the scallion, we're gonna add some
really fragrant aromatics. We have here one tablespoon
of freshly grated ginger. We also have four cloves of garlic. You also like garlic? - Yeah. - Okay.
- Always. - We just need a lot of breath mints after we eat this particular dish. And finally we've got Sichuan chili pods. If you can't find Sichuan chili pods, you can also use chili de arbol. Or if you can't find chili de arbol you can use red pepper flakes as well. We've got four here. Now I know because we're Chinese, you like it spicier? - Yeah, you like spicy, you can add more. But let me tell you.
- Yes - This is not very hot but after you deep fry it,
it will become very hot. - Okay, so if you deep fry
it, intensifies in flavor but thankfully, because I always keep two extra chili pods
(Jeffery laughing) in my pocket, we're gonna
go extra spicy here today. We're just going to superman
these, just like that. (upbeat music continues) There we go. May I also suggest wash your hands and don't rub your eyes or
any other parts of your body because you'll be in for a rude surprise. all right, so we've got the
onions and the aromatics done. Next we're gonna tackle the sauce. So we have here, a measuring cup. We've got soy sauce. This is six tablespoons
of light, soy sauce, Chinese light soy sauce does
not mean low sodium soy sauce. We're gonna add this
into this measuring cup. We also have three quarter cups of water. And finally we've got two thirds
cup of packed brown sugar. This is gonna bring the sweetness to the saltiness and the
savoriness of the sauce. So I'll just give this a good mix here. Gentle mix here. I think that looks good. - [Jeffery] Mix it more.
(Kevin laughing) - Okay, all right, okay, all right. You gotta listen to what
your dad says, I suppose. Perfect, the brown sugar
is properly dissolved. We're gonna cook this down anyway, so really it's going to turn into this nice, sweet, savory sauce. all right, we've got our dry aromatics, we've got our sauce and now we're gonna work on the beef. (upbeat music) Well you can't have Mongolian beef without obviously the beef. And that's exactly what
we have here today. We've got a pound and
a half of flap meats. Now the flap meat comes
from the bottom sirloin. It's also where the
flank steak comes from. So if you can't find flap meat, flank steak works just as well. It comes in this big sheet. So we've cut the meat with the grain. As you can see these
running down the side here. This is with the grain. And we've cut this into three inch width. And we put this in the freezer first. Why do we do that? - It will be more easy to cut. - So now we're gonna be
cutting this against the grain. So sort of on this side here. And do you have any special techniques when you're cutting the beef? - So I'll show you.
- Okay, great perfect. - [Jeffery] Okay. - So you're cradling it with your fingers and you're not exactly cutting it down but you're cutting it like
diagonal on a bias right? - [Jeffery] Yes, yes. Wanna try?
- You want me to try? Okay, all right. Let's see if I can do this here. So I'm holding it, kind of cradling it like
a claw against here? - Yes.
- And I'm just. - Just a little bit angle.
- All right, just like that. So the beef is all sliced up. We've got this bowl here
and we're gonna transfer, I'm just gonna use my hands, all this beef into this large bowl. And we've got half a cup of corn starch and it's just gonna go
right over this beef. And I'm gonna take some chopsticks and we want to coat the corn starch so that it covers the beef. How would you do it? - Use my fingers. - Like, like just grab it? All right, show it. So you're saying don't
be fussy about it right. (Jeffery laughing) Okay.
- See, look at this. - Oh yeah, all right, perfect, all right, okay.
- You see? - Great, while this
sits for a few minutes, we've got a couple other
pieces of equipment as well. We've got a Dutch oven
with three cups of oil. We've also got a wire rack
with a rimmed baking sheet. Our trusty spider skimmer
as always, our tongs. So the oil is heating at
375 degrees Fahrenheit. And you don't want to cook
all of this at once right? - Yeah we, in three batches. - Three batches. You don't want the oil
temperature to drop down too low.
- Yeah, drop too low. - Okay, perfect, so this
looks to be about 375. - Yes. - So you wanna do the honors and fry this? - Okay.
- Go ahead. - [Kevin] We're not
using a lot of oil here. Only three cups of oil.
(oil sizzling) - Both of these. - Yeah, so you want to move it around and so it doesn't stick together. Now in our recipe, we call for it to be
cooked for four minutes. If you want a crispier, four. A little bit more tender, about
two, two and a half minutes. It's been about two and a half minutes. This looks to be the
right done-ness for us, so let's put this on
the wire rack, go ahead. We're gonna let the beef
drain on our wire rack and we're gonna fry the other two batches. (upbeat music) All right, the beef has been fried. We've got our trusty wok as always here. This is over medium high heat. And since we don't wanna waste oil, we already have this big vat of oil. We're gonna transfer a tablespoon of the frying oil, into our wok. Now remember we had two bowls earlier. We've got the green
parts of the scallions. We've also got the white
minced part of the scallions with the ginger, the
garlic, and the chili pods. We're gonna dump this into the oil. And this shouldn't take long, right? - No. - About maybe 30, 45 seconds or so. - Yes, yes.
- Okay, so this goes in here. (scallions sizzling) Woo, wow. - I like it.
- You like it already? - Yes.
- You can handle this heat. (Jeffery sneezing)
Whoa. All right, so the garlic
looks to be browning. We've got our sauce here. We're gonna dump this into here. (sauce sizzling) - [Jeffery] Oh! - Now remember, because it's
got a lot of brown sugar, this is going to tighten and caramelize. We want this to be about
a cup and a quarter. That's gonna take anywhere
between six and eight minutes. - This looks good. - All right, this looks great. The sauce is tightening up already. - [Jeffery] Yes. - We're looking for that
glossy consistency here. And are we ready for the
beef and the scallion? - Yes, the time to put
the scallion and the beef. - Okay, great. So if you wanna transfer
some of this beef over, here's the scallions that
goes into the sauce as well. (food sizzling) - [Jeffery] Wow. - So this should take an additional minute but we're pretty much done. You want to toss it?
- Yeah. - I don't know, I think I'm
gonna make a big mess here. - Oh? Woo, good. - Okay.
(Jeffery chuckling) We'll have dry cleaning. Take care of this apron here. (upbeat music continues) Okay, you do it so much
more elegant than I can. This looks ready. I think it's time to eat. (Jefferey chuckling) - [Jeffery] Yes. (upbeat music) - Special shout out to Ashley Moore who came up with this
recipe for Cook's Country, hi Ashley. All right, I think it's
time for us to taste. - [Jeffery] Okay. - I'm trying to find one without a lot of chili seeds in
here, but let's go for it. Cheers, cheers.
(Jeffery laughing) Hmm. Hmm.
- That spicy. - Yes.
(Jeffery laughing) I know the recipe calls for four chilies. We went with six, maybe go for four, next time, you can handle
the spiciness, right? - Seven. - Seven, okay wow, show off. But this is great. It's sweet. It's got really savory. You can really taste a lot
of that garlic in there. The spice is coming through but saucy too. It's great with the rice. - Yeah I want more scallion. - You want more scallion? Okay, I should taste some
of the scallion here. So Mongolian beef is not from Mongolia. Where did the name come from? - Some people say it is from Taiwan some people say it is
from Chinatown, America. But I was told this dish
is invented by a Taiwanese, he's from Beijing. - A Taiwanese from Beijing. Your sources are accurate? - Yes. - Oh okay, all right.
(Jeffery laughing) - Just a name. - Just a name? - Just a name.
- Okay. - Pretty sure is not from Mongolia. - Okay, you can call it
Kevin Beef if you want to. (Jeffery laughing) - Okay, okay. - So what's your favorite beef dish? Is it Kevin beef or some other dish? Let us know in the comments below. And for this recipe, go to AmericasTestkitchen.com/Pang. - Thanks for watching. Please like this video and subscribe. (upbeat music)
