At Home Chinese Dinner - Revisited again - with Shrimp -too much salt :(

     The menu BGS had this week had a beef and ginger meal that we had 2 weeks ago, so I substituted the Shrimp Noodle dinner I made a couple years back - because I felt like it :)

The players

Sad part is I didn't read my recipe early enough to help myself this time.  Case in point, I forgot to defrost my 1 lb of shrimp.  And now begins the peeling and de-tailing of frozen shrimp. Cue frozen fingers.  *sigh*  Oh well, we move on.

The players have changed up this time around so pay attention: 1 lb shrimp, 1 10 oz bag of broccoli, 2 tbsp sesame oil 1/2 cup low-sodium chicken stock, 1/2 cup GF Soy sauce, 1 garlic clove smashed, 2 tsp fresh grated ginger, 2 tsp cornstarch, 4 tsp room temp water, 1/4 tsp five-spice (again, this five spice has seven spices), and rice noodles.

Last time I made this BGS was not yet GF, so I used egg noodles.  I also used low-sodium soy sauce (one of my pantry staples).  This time signals got mixed and the GF soy sauce that was purchased was most definitely not low sodium.  With the soy sauce being 1/2 of the sauce for this dish, the meal came out much saltier than BGS or I liked.  And he doesn't usually mind extra salt.

Before I started documenting tonight's meal, I ran to Amazon.com to add some low-sodium GF soy to my cart.  I think I will also add a different style rice noodle.  Tonight's noodle worked, but I think I would prefer noodles that were thinner and/or shorter.  Maybe something like this soba noodle (a BGS request).

At Home Chinese Dinner - Chinese Braised Beef and Noodles

Recently my friend CRS asked me to take on the challenge of making Chinese take-out at home.  I finally have been able to obtain the ingredients and am happy to say that my husband was very happy with the results!

This is the recipe I used:Chinese Braised Beef and Noodles

The Players

Today's players:
1 lb  Angus Beef Steak Sirloin Top Fillet
1 -  Manischewitz Egg Noodles Fine (12 oz pkg)
1 clove garlic - crushed
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp fresh ginger, grated
1/4 tsp five-spice powder
2 1/2 tablespoons oil - I used sesame
1/2 cup soy sauce - I used low sodium
1/2 cup chicken broth - again, low sodium
2 tsp cornstarch
4 tsp water
6 green onions, sliced

1. Cook the noodles in salted boiling water until just tender, then drain and rinse under cold water - to stop the cooking

2. Cut the beef into very thin slices - to make this easier I took the advice from my friend WL to put the beef in the freezer for a few minutes before slicing

The spices - ginger, garlic, 5-spice, and salt

3. Mix together the garlic, salt, ginger, five-spice powder (my husband noted there were actually 7 spices listed on the bottle he bought even though it was labeled five spice powder), and add to the sliced beef.

4.  Heat the oil and saute the beef over high heat for 2 minutes

5. Mix together the cornstarch and water - stir thoroughly - and stir into the beef.  Stir and cook beef until the sauce is smooth and thick.

6.  Gently fold (so as to avoid a massive mess) the noodles, mix well and heat through

7.  Add the green onions and stir - again avoiding mess - and stir another minute

Our final product

8. Serve immediately

The prep time on the recipe said 10 minutes.  The person who wrote this recipe must be a whiz with a knife.  It took me 15-20 mins just to chop the beef (thank you Kelsey Nixon's show on knives).  The measuring of the spices and chopping/measuring of everything else took little time which I love.    I think it took me 30 minutes total to make a wonderful meal that my husband loved and we have enough for another meal, since the original recipe is for 4-6 ppl and there are only 2 of us.

For me, the only thing missing is a veggie from this dish but you can easily steam some broccoli which would be a great addition...not sure there is enough room in the pot for anything else.

Edit: leftovers - specifically the noodles - are salty.  probably because they soaked up more salt overnight.  When I make this again I will most likely reduce the salt from 1 tsp to 1/2 or 1/4 tsp.