This beef in oyster sauce will satiate all your Asian food cravings!

The flavour of the oyster sauce was delicious and no, it doesn’t smell fishy if that’s what you’re worried about.

Tasmeea K December 10, 2015
After my surprising success with the Thai Green Chicken Curry last week, I couldn’t wait to try out another oriental recipe. And then yesterday, I spent a while organising some of my recipes on the blog and came to realise that I have a lot of recipes which use chicken but not anything with beef or mutton. Sometimes I tend to write chicken/beef under the ingredients but that’s about it. So this is my first recipe using beef.

Okay, so this is supposed to be another ‘Thai’ cooking recipe but I’m still not sure if it sounds more Chinese. I think I’ll just stick with Thai for now. Overall, I was very pleased with the result. The flavour of the oyster sauce was delicious and no, it doesn’t smell fishy or anything if that’s what you’re worried about. My mom tends to use oyster sauce almost as frequently as soy sauce and her dishes always turn out great.

Ingredients:

Beef – 750 grams (tender)
Sweet chilli sauce – 2 tbsp
Sugar – 1 ½ tsp
Vegetable oil – 4 tbsp
White onion – 1 (large, sliced)
Ginger paste – 2 tbsp
Beef stock or water – ½ cup
Corn flour – 4 tsp
Fresh button mushroom – 250 grams (sliced into quarters)
Oyster sauce – 4 tbsp
Green chillies – 4-5 (chopped) Or Spring onions – 2-3 (chopped)
Salt to taste

1. Thinly slice the beef and cut into narrow strips. Place in a dish and add the sweet chilli sauce and sugar. Marinate for one hour, or overnight if preferred.
2. Heat a wok or medium sized pan. Add oil and stir-fry onions and ginger for about five minutes until the onions are softened. Push to one side of the pan and stir-fry the beef until it changes colour.
3. Dissolve the corn flour in water or beef stock and add to the pan. Stir until thickened; add more corn flour if the gravy does not thicken. Cook beef under high heat for 10 minutes and then simmer on medium heat until the meat becomes tender, adding more water if necessary. This might take another 20 to 30 minutes.
4. Add the mushrooms to the pan and heat through. Add the oyster sauce, half of the green chillies or spring onions and salt to taste.
5. Serve beef over rice, garnish with the remaining green chillies or spring onions.





The only thing I was not happy with was that my beef was not ‘tender’. I allowed the beef to cook for a while and then added the mushrooms. By the time I realised I would need another 20 minutes or so to achieve very soft meat, the mushrooms would probably be dissolved into some sort of pulp which I didn’t want. So my dish was edible, but took ages to chew through the meat! That’s why I would recommend checking properly to see if the meat has become soft and tender before adding the mushrooms, which can take about half an hour or more. Because once you add the mushrooms, you can have about five more minutes of cooking and then it should be done. I’ve also read that if you let the meat ‘stew’ instead of stir-frying then this can toughen the meat. So when adding beef to the pan for the first time, make sure you drain off any liquids and add the meat to the pan on high heat.

So if you’re a meat lover or Asian foodie don’t even think about not trying this one out!

All photos: Tasmeea K

This post originally appeared here.
WRITTEN BY:
Tasmeea K The author has an unleashed passion for baking, cooking and anything else she has time for. She tweets as @BitSweetHaven (https://twitter.com/BitSweetHaven)
The views expressed by the writer and the reader comments do not necassarily reflect the views and policies of the Express Tribune.

COMMENTS (2)

Vinod | 8 years ago | Reply Looks great and i bet it taste good
tman | 8 years ago | Reply looks amazing
Replying to X

Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.

For more information, please see our Comments FAQ