Sep 23, 2008

Slow Cooker Mongolian Beef

I told you last week about my friend's all-slow-cooker birthday dinner - here's the main course. Steph at A Year of CrockPotting had linked to this Mongolian Beef recipe, which I adapted as follows.

Slow Cooker Mongolian Beef
Serves 8-10

nonstick cooking spray
1 large sweet onion, cut in half and sliced thinly (if you like onions, add another 1-2 onions)
1 cup soy sauce
2 cups chicken broth
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1/4 cup hoisin sauce
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon ground ginger
3 1/2 pounds flank steak, sliced thinly (about 1/8 inch) across the grain (Note: This is the most time-consuming part of the preparation, but fortunately it can be done ahead of time. Freezing the meat for about an hour will make it easier to get thin slices.)
1/2 cup cornstarch

1. Spray the inside of the crock with nonstick cooking spray. In the crock, combine the onion, soy sauce, broth, garlic, hoisin, sugar and ginger.

2. Combine the flank steak and cornstarch in a large zip top bag. Shake until the meat is evenly coated.

3. Add the beef to the crock and stir.

4. Cook on high for 4 to 5 hours or on low for 8 to 10 hours. Serve with hot rice.

Note #1: Since I was serving this to the kids, I left out the pepper flakes and alcohol. You could easily replace one cup of chicken broth with 1/2 cup of sherry and 1/2 cup of white wine. Add the sherry in step 1. Add the white wine in step 3 - pour the wine over the meat and don't stir. If you want heat, add 1 teaspoon of pepper flakes in step 1. I also left out the scallions because I don't like them, but per the original recipe, you could stir in two cups of chopped scallions one hour before you are going to serve the dish.

Note #2: I did most of the work the night before. I sliced the beef and put it in a zip top bag, then parked the bag in the fridge. I also did step 1, and parked the crock (covered with the lid) in the fridge overnight. The next day, around noon, I put the crock into the cooker, and added the meat. I have to admit that I was in a rush and added the meat without coating it in cornstarch. To compensate, I combined about 3 tablespoons of cornstarch with 2 tablespoons of cold chicken broth, stirred until it was smooth, then stirred the mixture into the crock. My sauce probably would have been thicker if I'd followed the original recipe, but it was fine the way it was too.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This looks great! I'm going to try it out in the next week or two.

Chief Family Officer said...

@Marsha - Let me know how you like it!