Sunday Gravy with yeah right: Culinary History Lesson – Mushroom Stir Meat Slices

Happy Springtime Sunday morning to everyone.

I am in the middle of my “personal busy season” right now. Just this weekend I had my eyes dilated – final eye exam of the year – I attended eldest granddaughters 20th birthday party and in 3 weeks there’s the ballet and the week after commencement for the aforementioned eldest granddaughter.

I’ve completed the vision and dental check ups and all is well. As I’ve mentioned before, I was a little concerned about my vision check since I am fully aware that my vision is bullshit but as it turns out I just needed new glasses.

[Hard edit. Not so fast. Turns out I’ve got ocular hyperintension what ever the fuck that means. Including 2 more visits to the eye doctor]

Funny how you don’t notice how quickly the time passes. I remember my last eye exam prior to this one. It was easy to remember because I had to make an appointment to have an escort. To enter Del Amo Mall!

Yes it was dead middle of the first few months of the pandemic. So after calculating the time lapse between glasses using all of the fingers on one hand, it had been 5 years since my last pair of glasses.

You know as you age, shit goes downhill exponentially faster than when you are young. My eye doctor said to get checked annually since my official diagnosis is “I’m old as shit!”

The dental check-up was flawless though. Twice a year cleaning and attention to daily dental care and I’m kicking righteous ass dental-wise. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before but my personal observation as the “Old as shit” guy; I honestly think the key to living a healthy life starts with taking good care of your teeth.

You don’t want an infection in your head is my astute observation I guess

The good news is once this moment of brief personal running around insanity concludes, I will be all set to chill for the summer. It’s good to tie off all family related loose ends before summer chill season.

Enough life updates already, let’s cook some fucking things.

Today we are going back to prepare another one of Slate Magazines, 25 Most Important Recipes of the last 100 years.

Our recipe today is significant because it contains the very first cooking reference to “Stir Fry” as a cooking technique.

From the Slate article: “This is when you really have to cook in Chinese,” wrote Buwei Yang Chao in the first great Chinese cookbook published in America. The Chinese term for a traditional cooking technique, ch’ao, “cannot be accurately translated into English. Roughly speaking, ch’ao may be defined as a big-fire-shallow-fat-continual-stirring-quick-frying of cut-up material with wet seasoning. We shall call it ‘stir-fry.’ ” Buwei, a doctor and birth control advocate, wrote How to Cook and Eat in Chinese in her first language; her daughter Rulan, a Harvard graduate student, translated it into English; her husband Yuenren, a linguistics professor, made his own alterations and suggestions. Together they made the perfect team not only to write useful recipes but, as the historian Anne Mendelson wrote in Chow Chop Suey: Food and the Chinese American Journey, to translate “a cuisine across incredible cultural and language gaps.”

It is also as simple to make as it is delicious.

Here we go.

Mushrooms Stir Meat Slices

“1 ½ lb. meat (or 1 lb. for boneless meat). Remember meat means pork? The usual cuts used are pork chop, tenderloin, or the lean part of shoulder or fresh ham.

1 lb. mushrooms

1/2 tbl soy sauce

1 tbl sherry or shaoxing rice wine

3 tl lard or vegetable oil

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

1 tbl cornstarch

2 tbl water”

That is the ingredient list taken directly from the article.

Remember this recipe was written in 1945 and I believe it was to open up the minds of American cooks to Chinese cuisine. It is obviously VERY simplistic in it’s approach.

I took the liberty to substitute the shaoxing rice wine since I already had it on hand and I’m willing to guess that this was the real ingredient in the original recipe concept. The author probably figured most American cooks had sherry in their kitchen. EVERY goddamn one of them I’m willing to bet back in 1945.

On that note I’m fucking with the recipe list right out the goddamn gate.

I can personally NOT prepare anything Chinese food related without these next 3 ingredients.

Nope. Can’t do it. For me the base to any Chinese food recipe has to have green onion, garlic and ginger. That’s on me but I’m standing by my motherfucking principles on that. I’ll use about 1 tablespoon or so of the minced ginger, 4-5 cloves of minced garlic and the white parts of the scallions seen here.

Mince up the white of the onion for the stir fry and the green for the garnish.

Peel your ginger.

Yep, still a pain in the ass to peel.

Mince that shit up nicely.

Put all of the chopped bits into a bowl to prepare your stir fry station.

For the meat today…

And one goddamn HELL of a deal at that.

Quoting from the recipe “Slice meat into flimsy slices about 1 inch square and 1/16 inch thick, or thicker if you can’t. This needs a lot of patience and skill, but most Chinese wives have them.”

Oh SNAP! That’s a dig at the American cooks right there. Fix your patience and skill you lazy American shitheads just TRYING to be like a Chinese wife in the kitchen.

Fucking love that.

Easiest way for me to slice the pork that thin was to put it into a freezer for about 13 minutes or so, just long enough to firm it up for slicing.

Like so.

Perfect. Nice and thin for the stir fry.

“Mix thoroughly the slices with the soy sauce, sherry, cornstarch, sugar, and water.”

If you were paying close attention to the photos up there you may have noticed some sesame oil next to that rice wine. Good eye. I used a little splash of that in the marinade as well.

Grab your mushrooms.

Once again from the recipe: “Wash and slice mushrooms so that the pieces look like ꟼ I I P from one side and like T T T T from another side.”

I think this is what that means.

Heat up your wok/skillet and add in the oil.

HOT, remember.

Mushroom first. Maybe 2 minutes.

Cook until golden.

These things just sucked up the oil. but that’s good! You’ll notice that when you eat them.

Set the mushrooms aside for the moment.

Add a splash more oil to the skillet if needed and start on your savories, that would be the onion, ginger and garlic.

Maybe 30 seconds or so to get your kitchen stupid aromatic. Add in the meat and marinade next.

This won’t take too long. Maybe 3 minutes?

Add the mushrooms back in and stir to combine.

The fuck you waiting for?

Plate that shit!

Serve over rice, noodles, vegetables what-the-fuck-ever!

Be sure to sprinkle the green part of the green onion on top.

Exactly like I forgot to do!

Close up time.

Serve over white rice.

Enjoy immediately.

Absolutely simple. Absolutely ANYONE can make this and it’s absolutely fucking delicious. Not to mention you can make like a million variations with this recipe as the base.

What a fantastic way to introduce a cuisine. You get the balance of flavors, the simplicity and the perfection of remaining simple. Any protein can work here. Add in cabbage, carrot, onion, peas, you name it.

Do it!

This one absolutely deserves the title of one of the most important recipes of the past 100 years. 

Brilliant.

This weeks positive holidays via A Bit of Good News are: “May 18 is International Astronomy Day, International Heritage Breeds Day, International Museum Day, World Fiddle Day, National Cheese Soufflé Day, National Learn to Swim Day, National River Cleanup Day, Marshmallow Day, Mother Whistler Day and Plant a Lemon Tree Day.”

I’ve never made a cheese soufflé.

Hmmmm.

Thanks for stopping by everyone. I appreciate the hell out of you.

Until next Sunday…