Yes, You can still enjoy your favorites the low-carb way!

You have decided to go low-carb, and you miss having a super dish like the picture above. By the end of this post, you will have your dish back!

We are so hung up on carbohydrates, we actually think that we cannot live without them. We are taught that we need at least 8 to 10 servings a day, or all hell is going to break loose on our bodies.

Carbs are cheap. You could live on them alone if you had to, if you don’t mind the sugar spikes, crashes, and eventual diabetes. I lived by carbs for a whole year and a half. I ate in one night what should serve a whole family.

The irony is that the cycle continues as you eat more. You need more, and then your body tries to cope, which in turn makes you want more.

Carbs are the heroin of the food world.

It’s not over though. I love Asian food. Hell, I work in a hotel that has a Pan-Asian restaurant with food that is seriously off the hook. The key is to rethink and re-create the dishes.

Beef broccoli is a dish that has a million variations. I have seen everything from Hoisin to ketchup.

What makes this dish different is it is an American-Chinese dish with authentic Asian ingredients. You will not be able to find some of these ingredients at your local supermarket. You will need to brave the ChinaTown of your area.

That is a good thing.

Chinatown is like a treasure island. When you go there, there are lot of things to discover.

Today I am going to get into exactly how we pull this dish off, then the recipe will follow.

First thing that we will need is broccoli. You will need to use the whole stalk. What you do is cut out the fleuerttes, peel back the skin of the stalk and slice it thinly. Now for the tricky part.

If you just throw your broccoli into the stir-fry, it will not be cooked by the time everything else is. You need to help it along. I am going to introduce you to a technique known as “Blanching and Refreshing“:

You can't just throw in the broccoli and expect it to cook. You need to help it out.

Bring your water to a boil, then pour it into the broccoli. Let it steep for 5 minutes.

Pour the boiling water to cover; steep for 5 minutes.

After the 5 minutes are up, drain the hot water, run the broccoli under cold water to stop the cooking. The broccoli should be tender-crisp, not limp, and should be a nice green.

Now you are "refreshing" the cooked broccoli. It should be tender-crisp! Look how green it is!

The other two stars to this show are the beef and button mushrooms.

Rib eye steaks were on a super special, so I just had to get them. I consider a rib eye to be superior in flavor to a tenderloin. Honestly, the mushrooms needed to be used that day, but I got them for super cheap.

Great news about mushrooms is that they are basically “free” on the carb scale, and are a great vehicle for flavors.

Look at that steak, and those mushrooms rock as well!

That leaves us with the rest of the ingredient that tie everything together:

Soy sauce, Oyster sauce, and 5 spice powder are easy to get. Black vinegar and Shaoxing wine require a trip to ChinaTown. It will be worth it though, I promise!

Of course, you need something to sweeten the dish up, that will counterbalance the umami of the soy and level out the acidity of the black vinegar. We are going natural and low-carb, so it is Stevia to the rescue:

Our secret weapon for the sauce.

Now, we separate the fat from the meat, and cut it into chunks. Fear not though, throw the fat into the pan over low heat to render it out.

While that is rendering out, pour a splash of Shaoxing wine, soy sauce, and sprinkle a good amount of 5 spice onto the beef. Mix it up well, and let it sit for 10 minutes.

Once you have a decent amount of fat rendered out, crank up the heat and sauté the beef.

Saute the beef over high heat. You can almost see it jump!

Place your beef aside, and pour your mushrooms in the pan, and saute them. You will find that they will soak up the fat. That is a good thing.

These mushrooms are a sponge, and a vehicle for the flavors.

Once the mushrooms have softened a bit, add a splash of Shoaxing wine and cook it down. Add a good amount of oyster sauce, and thin it out with the black vinegar.

Sprinkle the stevia over the top and mix it in.

Finally, add the broccoli and the beef back to the mix, taking care to pour in any juices that have dripped off the beef.

Stir, and serve.

Now, does that look good or what?

Now, you can eat it just like that, or you can serve it with rice. I find that eating a salad on the side is more than enough.

5 Spice Beef and Broccoli

Servings: 4

Ingredients:

• 600 grams beef (I used ribeye that was on special)
• 600 grams broccoli (about 1 head) chopped into fleurettes, stalk peeled and sliced thinly.
• 4 liters boiling water
• 250 grams button mushrooms, quartered

Marinade:

• 10 mL 5 spice powder
• 30 mL shaoxing wine (or you could use dry sherry, but it is just not the same.)
• 30 mL soy sauce (the best money can buy!)

Sauce:

• 60 mL shaoxing wine
• 120 mL oyster sauce
• 60 mL black vinegar
• 1 packet stevia

Method:

1. Cut broccoli into fleurettes, peel the stem and slice thinly.
2. Place all into a large bowl; pour boiling water to cover.
3. Allow to sit for 5 minutes.
4. Drain the boiling water from the bowl, and run the broccoli under cold water to stop the cooking.
5. Meanwhile, trim the fat (reserve) and cut the beef into bite-sized pieces.
6. Render the beef fat over low heat in your wok.
7. Marinate beef by sprinkling 5 spice powder, soy sauce, and Shaoxing wine. Let stand for 10 minutes.
8. Saute beef in fat over high heat until just seared; remove from the pan and reserve. (The beef should be rare at this point.)
9. Add mushrooms to the wok, saute until soft.
10. Deglaze with Shaoxing wine, reduce to 1/4.
11. Add oyster sauce, black vinegar, and the stevia packet; stir to create a sauce.
12. Add the beef and broccoli back to the pan, and heat through.
13. Serve hot.

After an abysmal staff meal that went out last week, I vowed that I would win back the hearts of the staff. The culprit? A really bad stew. Nothing says you could give a shit less than a bad stew folks. Enter in Nico. The poor guy did not actually know that what he was doing was giving me a Soprano’s style panic attack after sampling his latest fare. See, he thought what he was doing was good as gold. I resolved that the cook needed a lesson in time… and flavor.

I made the following recipe one day while trying to figure out how to get rid of that extra beer in the fridge. (I am not a heavy drinker.) You really cannot go wrong with the ingredients here, you just have to have patience while you are building up your flavours. I told Nico what I will tell you: the care you take at the start of this recipe will reflect two-fold at the end. Be patient, and you will not recieve the “how could you?” stares from those you love.

Beef and Mushroom Stew with Stout Ale

Servings: 8

• 1 kg lean beef stew meat, cubed
• 30 g flour
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 pcs carrots, peeled and sliced
• 2 rib celery, sliced
• 2 medium potatoes, large dice
• 1 pint Crimini mushrooms, quartered
• 1 pint portabella mushroom, sliced
• 30 mL tomato paste
• 350 mL beer, a stout ale such as Guinness
• 500 mL beef stock
• to taste salt
• to taste pepper
• to taste oregano
• to taste Roux

1) Pat beef dry; dust stewing beef with salt, pepper, then flour.

Do not skip this step. If your beef is dry, it will brown a heck of a lot better. Meat does not come seasoned, and the flour will also aid a bit by adding a nutty brown flavor, and will help a little with thickening the sauce in the end.

2) Sear in heavy-bottomed pot until well browned.

Please, for the love of god, do not dump all the beef into your pot! What will happen is the juices will escape, you will begin stewing the beef in its own blood. You will get gray lumps that will resemble cat litter chunks. You don’t want to serve cat litter chunks to your family, do you? Take your time here, this is the most important step! Second most important step? Let the meat brown! You might be tempted to stir it right away. Patience! It will brown – if you let it!

3) Remove browned beef from pot, set aside, continue browning the rest of the beef.

Allowing the beef to rest will aid you so much in your quest to tenderize the meat. The best part is you will see a gradual buildup of brown on the bottom and sides of your pot. Do not be alarmed! This is flavor people. You just cannot buy that!

4) Add onion, carrots, celery, potatoes and mushrooms; sweat until translucent.

Why do I say ‘sweat’ and not ‘saute’? This is a huge pet peeve of mine. ‘Sauter’ means “to jump” in french. We are not looking for quick browning here. We are looking to get those brown bits loosened up from the bottom of the pot from the acid in these ingredients. We are literally, “making them sweat” out thier juices to help us with this task.

5) Add tomato paste and cook for a minute.

Some people will disagree with me on this step. Why tomato paste? Why the hell not? Stick with me folks, you will not be disapointed. You are dry roasting the paste to release another dimension in flavours.

6) Add beer, deglaze and reduce.

Ahh… deglazing is where we get those brown bits off the sides. This is critical for the development of flavors folks. This is the reason we spent so much time building the flavors.

7) Add broth, bring to a simmer.

You *could* add water. I don’t suggest it, but you could. Point is, you spent so much time in the earlier steps, you really don’t need the stock. Thing is, stock has body, and you will see why that is important later.

8 ) Simmer until the beef is tender.

How long is that? An hour? A day? Depends. I cannot give you a magic number. See, it depends on your beef. Is it 32 weeks old, or 70? Was it grass fed, or corn finished? What cut are you using? All of these are factors in tenderness, and how much time it will take to finish your meal. What I can tell you is to stick a fork into it ~ if you can shake the meat of the fork, it is tender enough for the next step.

9) Add seasonings.

Some people will disagree with me on this. Hey, you are following me on this one, right? I season my meat and stuff first, then adjust in the end. It is way easier to add than to take away, know what I mean papi?

10) If needed, adjust the consistency of the stew with some roux.

Now, chances are that if you used a stock to make the stew, you will not need to follow this last step. The gelatin in the stock will form a sauce for you. If you need to do this, make sure you take out all your meat and vegetables. Bring the sauce up to a boil and add in your roux. Why? Well, if you were to boil the sauce with the meat still inside it, you would toughen it up, and that would defeat the purpose, right?

So, there you have it folks. Stew 101. Nico enjoyed his experience, and better yet, I did not have to hear the staff bitching about another crappy meal. All in all, everyone went away today happy.

Good luck, and remember, cooking is what you want it to be.