Marinated beef salad and Peanut Butter Choc Chip Cookies

Marinated beef is my go to recipe and crowd pleaser whenever I have dinner night. Its easy to prepare in advance, its fun to cook in a wok for large amounts of people and being the wok master is always fantastic. This beef recipe is easily adapted to whatever proportions you want, and whatever marinade inclusions you want. Maybe not so much a recipe but a guide line?

This recipe can also be used for rice paper rolls. This time I served it with vermicelli noodles and a salad selection. 

My mother's favourite brand of vermicelli noodles. They come in a packet of eight, and come out in little squares, perfect for one meal. Literally heat water to boiling, shove in noodles and cook until just before al dente. Drain and put somewhere safe. Be careful cause these suckers love water and to get grossly soggy.

My salad plate. Grated carrots. Blanched bean sprouts. Weirdly cut up cucumber and shredded lettuce. ONTO THE RECIPES.

Marinated beef. Shake for deliciousness.

Ingredients: 

Thinly sliced beef. 400g of beef is enough for six servings.1kg is plenty to feed about 6-10 people for one round. I normally use cheapo meat like topside, you could use any type of steak, if you can afford it, whatever you feel like. The marinade makes even topside taste good.

Lemongrass - minced at least the white part of two white stalks.

Garlic cloves - minced at least two cloves

Onions - white/brown/purple, at least one solid medium

Lime juice - at least half a lime squeezed in

Oyster sauce - two-three tablespoons, I lie I just chuck it over until the bowl is covered in a spiral of oyster sauce, usually enough to cover the top as you can see in the instruction picture

Soy sauce - see above

Sesame oil - see two above

Sweet soy sauce - see three above

Cooking oil - two tablespoons to make the meat shiny is what my mother says.

Chilli - one hot chilli. Or chilli flakes if you want. Dried chilli could do I suppose

Pepper - black or white, just a wee bit.

My best friends. Also sinister empty orange juice

Instructions:

Mix it all together. Massage with hands. Alternatively put it in a box, and shake it like a polaroid picture. Shove in the fridge for at least half an hour before you eat. I normally do it 4-5 hours in advance. Stir the mixture as you please for extra flavour. Cook in at butter or oil for as long as it takes for all the meat to turn brown or when the onions begin to soften, at that thiness it will take less than a minute. Reoil the pan as required and scrap off burn bits as needed.

MIX.

Notes:

- For an easy time with the beef, either get your butcher to slice it into ham thin slices or freeze it up to an hour beforehand for an easy time. Soft beef is murder to slice since it slides everywhere. Also tiny slivers of beef tend to burn in the pan when cooking cause you can't pick them up.

 - you can use like stirfry beef if you want, but it tends to be too thick for this recipe. Freeze and maybe use a mandolin to slice it thinner?

- This is not a particularly saucy marinade, its mostly coating the meat. If desired, double, triple quantities for the marinade as wanted. Its not a great idea cause the sauce burns and sticks like crazy on pans if not dealt with quickly

- You can mix and match whatever ingredients you want really. The basic tennants are something sour for tenderness, something sweet for balance and caramelisation, something salty for deliciousness, something that smells good whilst cooking to entice. In this recipe, sour = lime juice, sweet = sweet soy sauce, saltiness = soy sauce+oyster sauce, smells good = lemongrass, onions, garlic and chilli. 

 - alternatives to some of these flavours can include

 - sour, lemon juice, orange juice, vinegar, pineapple juice

 - sweet, honey, sugar, condensed milk, peanut butter. The more you put in the more likely it is to burn though. 

- saltiness - salt? Hoisin sauce, satay sauce. Iunno, premade sauces too I guess.

- smells good - ginger, galangal, cumin, lemongrass, onions

- spice, curry powder, paprika, cayenne pepper, chilli flakes, sambal, harissa

 - Always fry off a bit of the meat before officially serving as you can then balance the flavours as needed.

The finished product

Probably my signature cookie, its never gone wrong but it might now that I've said that since I'm typing this post in advance. Originally stolen from this site, not much was changed from the original recipe cause its a pretty fantastic recipe. I'm just rehashing the recipe with a few tips that everyone should know.

A batch from earlier this year.

Use: 
Bribing nurses for favours. Pick me up on sad days. Fantastic fodder for cookie cutters since the peanut butter really helps hold the shape. Burnt ones can be smashed into vanilla ice cream for utter deliciousness

Ingredients:
1/2 cup softened butter
3/4 cup of sugar
1 egg
1 splash of vanilla essence
3/4 cup crunchy peanut butter
1 cup plain flour
1-2 teaspoons of baking powder
3/4-1 cup chocolate chips

Various junk you need:
2x baking trays
Cooling rack or a cool wire rack
Large mixing bowl
Wooden spoons

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 175C, if you oven overheats a steady 150C is fine too
2. Line your baking trays with baking paper
3. Mix butter and sugars until creamy.

MIX DAMN YOU MIX

4. Mix in your egg, vanilla, flour and peanut butter until a smooth paste is formed
5. Shove in your choc chips, don't overmix or bad things will happen

Cheap arse choc chip bits

6. Keep wide space on all sides when laying out these bad boys cause they have a tendency to hostilely invade each others territory. That different combo of flour seemed to slow down the rate of expansion while still making a nicely fluffy cookie :)

7. 10-12 minutes in if you like em soft. 12-14 if a bit chewier. This is your average when your oven is right, if going at a lower heat, go for a few minutes longer.
8. Shove them on a wire cooling rack and for gods sake wait until cool to eat, they crumble like sand, but show surprising resiliency post cooling down

I couldn't find my wire cooling rack so I ended up using first a pasta colander as seen on the upper left and then the ingenious idea of using one of my oven racks turned upside down. Please take pity on me and buy me a baking tray or a wire cooling rack.