The purpose of this recipe is to document the specifications of a fully engineered design for white bread. The bread, (a.k.a. "Product") shall consist of a crusty exterior and fluffy interior. The product shall yield two loaves both bearing in equal dimensions, weight, and texture. The product and baking vessels shall be capable of enduring temperatures up to 350°F (176.67°C)

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• 1-1/2 to 2 pounds of round steak (depending on how hungry you are)
• 3/4 cup of soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon of plum sauce (this ingredient should be available at your major grocery store with Asian ingredients, or from your nearest Chinatown.  If you're already in China, hey you're in luck - just reach out of your window and borrow some from your neighbor...)  It's a viscous jelly type of sauce with a sweet and sour flavor made with plums or other stone fruits mixed with sugar, vinegar, ginger, and chiles.  Basically it's a Chinese version of Indian Chutney.
• Zest of one lemon
• 1 1/3 tablespoon of lemon juice (that's equal to 4 teaspoons or approximately half the lemon)
• 1 julienned carrot (not to be confused with the aspiring new fashion designer duo Julie and Karet)
• 1/2 bunch of American Broccoli.  For those of you trying to make logic of what half a bunch is by thinking "well, a bunch is a lot; ergo half a bunch is not that much...", and still have no clue; a bunch equals 1-1/2 to 2 pounds which yeilds about six to eight servings.
• 1 medium onion thinly sliced - figure a large onion is the size as a softball and a small onion is the size of a baseball, so somewhere in between.  NOTE:  do not slice the softball or baseball!
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 1 tablespoon of cornstarch
• cooked long grain white Japanese rice or basmati rice

1. Mix the marinade in a bowl that is big enough to hold the liquids and sliced meat.  Need to look for a bowl?  Go ahead - I'll wait... (one mississippi, two mississippi, three mississippi, zzzz, zzzz, zzzzzzzzzzz; huh, oh hey, you're back!).  Mix all the liquid ingredients of soy sauce and plum sauce.  The sesame oil in the photo is a guest appearance although it's not used in this recipe.  It's there for visual effects because as we are all aware - sesame seed oil conjures up ideas of Chinese authenticity.  In reality our dish is a simple variation of the Chinese American version similar to what you would get at any "Golden" or "Royal" whatever restaurant.
2. Next zest a lemon into the bowl as shown on this picutre; as I've mentioned several times before in past blogs (and where ever I give cooking lessons; wink, wink, nudge, nudge - you know what I'm sayin'?  Eh?!), the taste of any citrus fruit is in the zest - don't pay any attention to those little notes and reminders that my wife leaves for me.

3. Now squeeze the lemon half while cupping your other hand underneath to catch the seeds while letting the juice flow through between your fingers into the bowl.  Savor this experience for a minute as it whisks you away to visions of lemon trees soaking in the rain and the citrusy aroma wafts through the air giving it that fresh clean scent of lemon scented Pledge...  That my friends is called "aroma therapy..."

4. Add a pinch of ground black pepper (a pinch is any small amount that you can hold between your fore finger and thumb; for those who have small fingers or don't have any thumb - it approximately 1/16 teaspoon)

5. Slice up the meat into 1/4 inch slices on the diagonal against the grain as shown here.  Slicing the meat this way ensures that you are cutting against the grain which means more tender slices (which means easier to chew; which means easier to digest; which means easier to... well, you get the picture).  I can't believe he just said that...

6. Place the meat in the marinade and let it soak in all that flavor while you prepare the vegetables.  If you wish, you can add a shot of dry sherry (the wine not the stripper) into the bowl so the meat can "party all the time, party all the time, party all the time!"

7. For the vegetables, start by peeling the carrots and cut it into small straws the size of toothpicks.  Keep in mind that the thinner your carrots are, the faster they cook.  Next cut up the broccoli so that you end up with small bite-sized florets.  You can also cut the stem into small bite-sized pieces or about 1 inch cubes.  If you have large stems, you might want to peel the skin off a little because they tend to get chewy rather than crunchy during the cooking process.
   Slice up the onion in thin slices and finally finely mince the garlic.
8. The cooking process for this dish requires one cooking vessel and a technique most common to Chinese cuisine called Stir-fry.  The cooking vessel that we are using here is The Wok (yes, the wok!) aptly named because the cooking vessel does all the wok!  (you see what I did there?! now that's funny!)  If you don't have a wok, you can use a large saute or fry pan.  The key is to make sure that the cooking vessel is heated prior to adding the oil and any other ingredient.  The object of the technique is to immediately sear in the flavors within the food by cooking the exterior of the meat immediately and have the heat radiate towards the middle to finish the cooking process.  Since all of the ingredients, with the exception of the broccoli, are cut very thin, cooking them takes approximately less than 1 minute.
   
   
   
   
   Start by adding the oil immediately followed by the meat into the wok (save the marinade).  You should hear lots of sizzle which indicates that your cooking vessel was properly heated.  If your wok or pan is not hot enough, you will boil the meat instead of stir-frying (you will go to jail, you'll not pass go, and will not collect $200 - on top of this, you will loose a turn...).  Alternatively, you will most likely get a more chewy texture when you bite into the meat.
   Remember to keep turning the meat so that both sides are cooked and to prevent burning the food (as in stir the pot, Marge!  That's why they call it stir-frying).
9. Push the meat along the side of the wok to reduce the cooking temperature.  The idea of the shape of the wok is temperature control.  The ingredients cooking towards the center of the wok are cooking at high heat; the ingredients around the middle perimeter of the wok gets cooked at medium heat; and low heat for ingredients positioned near the top of the wok.  Start Adding your vegetables starting with the onions, followed by the broccoli, and then the carrots.
10. Cook the vegetables for about a minute.  If the sizzle subsides, add a little bit more oil and crank up the heat a little.  Continue to stir the ingredients.

11. Now whisk in a tablespoon of corn starch to the marinade and make sure that it is fully incorporated.  If you want to end up with lots of sauce at the bottom of the dish, you can add a cup of cold water and whisk another tablespoon of corn starch to this mixture.  You will need to readjust your seasoning with Kosher salt and ground black pepper right before the end of the cooking process.


12. Combine the meat and the vegetables by stirring them together and add the minced garlic.  Stir, then add the marinade.  Let the marinade come to a boil to thicken.  Stir, stir, stir... mix, mix, mix - then adjust your seasoning prior to turning off the heat.
13. Now here's where the gourmet part comes in...  Grab one of those (clean) small plastic containers that they give you at fancy restaurants to take your leftovers in and serve up some rice filling half of the container.  Then scoop up some of that deliciuos beef broccoli stir-fry that you just made onto the other half of the container.  Sprinkle the beef broccoli with a pinch of white sesame seeds (and if you happen to have some black sesame seeds, you can sprinkle a pinch of that on top of the rice).  Take step back and look at your creation and marvel at how fancy and gourmeyish it looks... If anybody asks where you got that delicious looking dish, you can tell them that you've just opened a fancy Chinese restaurant called "The Golden _______ (fill in your favorite word here)" and that this is one of the dishes in the menu.  Yes, you will be perpetuating a conspiracy that you are now somehow an owner of a fancy restaurant; but it's okay.  Your secret is safe with me...

1. First and foremost, obviously, you'll need beef of which you will need two pounds of.  This recipe calls for stew meat (I hear you, my faithful culinary friends - which part of the cow is the stew meat?)  According to Dictionary.com, stew meat is tough meat that needs stewing to be edible.  Yay, the heavens have opened up to reveal a most glorious revelation...  not!  A better definition comes from Mealsforyou.com and goes something like this - "Beef for stew may be cut from chuck, brisket, rib, or plate. It usually consists of meaty pieces, cut into one-inch or two-inch squares and containing various amounts of fat. Beef for stew is usually prepared by braising or by cooking in liquid."  Hallelujah!  Hallelujah!
2. Secondly, you'll need two bottles of your favorite red wine.  I know this sounds like a lot of wine but trust me, you'll use every drop of it in this recipe.  Now, when cooking with wine it's very important that the wine you use to cook with is also one that you would normally drink; although you wouldn't necessarily use your most expensive Dom. Romane Conti 1997 (which by the way costs somewhere in the neighborhood of $1,540.00 per bottle); unless of course you're one of those uppity ups, in which case you wouldn't be reading blogs about the lighter side of anything by a gourmet company that has anything to do with conspiracies.  Where was I?!  Oh yes, the point I'm trying to make is that if the words "cooking wine" is labeled anywhere on the bottle, chances are that it's very inexpensive, diluted, added with salt, and one that you would never put into your mouth as a beverage to have with your favorite meals (not even on a dare).  No, they ain't got no spirit, mama!
3. Third most important ingredient is two cups of beef stock.  100% all American cowhide beef stock (just kidding - no cowhide in there for you serious types...)  Can you use broth?  Wha', of course you can, sonny!  What's the difference between broth and stock?  Wha' they almost the same, chi'd - they made the same whay but stock is made usin' the bones of the an'mah; whey as broth is made wif the meat.  The difference is when they are refrigerated; stock will coagulate into a gel because of the gelatin from the melted cartilage from the bones during the cooking process.  How did you become such a wise old man, mister?  Wha' never you mind... Ah say... Ah say... Now go 'way, son.  Ya bothern' me...
4. The other ingredients form the aromatics (in this case 1 sliced onions, 1 minced garlic clove, and two cups of sliced mushrooms), the thickener (2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour), the base (typically egg noodles but you can actually substitute any type of starch - rice, potatoes, etc.), and finally the garnish (in this case chopped parsley to add some green color to the plate).
5. For an extra tang, you can add a dollop of sour cream if you like prior to serving.

1. Set your ovens to 350°F (177°C) for those wanting to finish the cooking process in the oven.  Slice up the meat into bite-sized pieces and season with Kosher salt.  Brown the meat in a pot over medium heat in small batches so as not to overcrowd the pot.  This browning process is called maillard reaction in the culinary industry which is a chemical reaction between amino acids and the sugar content of the ingredient.  Yada, yada, yada...  In layman's terms, it's this chemical reaction that brings out the meaty flavor.
2. Set the meat aside in a bowl as each batch browns and continue until all of the meat has been browned.
3. What you'll be left with are caramelized bits of brown residue from the meat.  This residue is called "fond" because all Chefs are fond of this process of cooking.  Actually the word fond is a French term meaning "base" or "foundation".

4. Next add the sliced onions into the pot with the fond and let them swim around in all that goodness.  Sprinkle a pinch of Kosher salt to release the onions' natural juices.  Can you hear them sing?  "Ohhhh yessss, baby!  We're all tingly inside...  We're so fond of this heat!  Oh no!  We're melting... woe is me, woe is me..."  (... sorry, getting back to our stroganoff recipe).
5. Okay, this would be the perfect time to open up that first bottle of wine because you will need to deglaze the pot with two cups of it.  Deglazing is the process of adding liquid (in this case the wine) to the pot to help dislodge those caramelized bits of flavor (the fond).  To this, you will add two cups of broth or stock, the browned meat, and the garlic.

6. Let the liquid come to a boil, then cover and place it in the oven.  For those playing along and want to continue the cooking process on the stove top, just lower the temperature down to a simmer (a simmer is when there's only small bubbles mostly on the side of the pan; otherwise it's considered boiling).
7. Here is where the crucial and most difficult part of this process - take out a wine glass from your cupboard and pour yourself some of that left over wine.  Continue sipping the wine until it is all gone and then pour yourself another glass.  You'll need to continue this process until the first bottle is empty.  By this time, 30 minutes would have already elapsed (unless you drink fast in which case you might not make it to the end of this blog...)

8. Add and stir in the sliced mushrooms to the pot (I make sure I clarify this because some of you may already be blitz that you might be adding the mushrooms in your wine glass) and continue cooking.
9. Start cooking the pasta or rice according to the instructions on the package.
10. Open up the second bottle of wine and repeat step seven.
11. After another half hour have elapsed, pick yourself up from the kitchen floor and gently place the empty wine bottle and glass on the counter.
12. Open up the oven door and remove the pot.  Yes, that stinging in your hands is because the pot is hot from coming straight out of the oven... Yes you should've used dry towels or oven mitts... Place the pot on the stove top and turn the burner back on to medium.  Yes, at this point, you can close the oven door...

13. Uncover the pot - WAIT!  Where's your oven mitts?!  Okay, then add two tablespoons of flour while stirring with the wooden spoon (you will need two hands for this...)  I realize that coordination will not be your strong suit at this point after having finished two bottles of red wine so please feel free to call for assistance.  I pity you if you live alone...  It's important to keep stirring as you add the flour so it doesn't create big lumps and to help the flour dissolve quickly.  Now turn up the heat so that the entire mixture comes to a second boil because the thickening agent will not come to its full consistency until it comes to boiling temperature.  After this the liquid will be sauce consistency.  You will know that it's sauce consistency by applying the method called "nappe" which is not a French term to fall asleep.  Nappe is the process of coating the back of the spoon with the liquid.  To get to sauce consistency, coat the back of the spoon with the liquid and run your finger across the back of the spoon.  If the sauce remain divided, then you've achieve sauce consistency, otherwise you'll see the two sides come back together where you ran your finger across.  Once the sauce has thickened, readjust your seasoning with Kosher salt and ground black pepper to taste, then turn the stove top off (and your oven if you haven't already done so.)
14. Dish up some noodles or rice onto a bowl and top it with the finished stroganoff.  Garnish with the chopped parsley and prepare to indulge with more red wine...  Okay, for this recipe you'll actually need three bottles of red wine...

Enjoy!!!