Tibetan Fried Noodles (Saveur, '98)
The reason I love Saveur is that their articles have a real anthropological slant. Rather than cover a hot new chef, or the dining scene in some bright, shining city or million-dollar vacation destination, they will go over the cuisine served at a wedding in Burma, or an outdoor lunch during harvest at a winery in Basilicata, or a church dinner in northern Minnesota's Finnish community. They aren't afraid to shine the light on the obscure, and every article is tied to a time and a place. If they do cover a restaurant, it will be either the most minimalist lean-to in the Caribbean, or it will be a fine dining palace that's been open for decades, where you get the impression that, while still grand, it's a bit past its sell-by date, and there is a real sense that they are chronicling it for posterity while they still can.
The other reason I love Saveur is the recipes. The thing about Saveur's recipes is that, with the exception of some older articles on a single ingredient (interesting when it was gooseberries, less so when it was celery), recipes are all from primary sources. They collect them in the field, they don't just dream them up in a test kitchen. This puts Saveur in stark contrast with Food and Wine, which is always running articles like '33 Holiday Favorites on a Budget,' or '5 More Things to do with Gorgonzola.' You can mine other food magazines for ideas, but you read Saveur to understand the context in which ideas are born.
The trouble is, magazine recipes, even Saveur recipes, aren't always the best-written. They are usually space-compromised, and occasionally just-plain error-prone. (I wish I could say this was just a problem in the older issues, but I was recently lead badly astray by a recipe in #200, the most recent issue. Let rise for an hour, my ass.) I encountered one such recipe recently.
https://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Tibetan-Fried-Noodles/
It's for a Tibetan-style noodle dish called Thukpa Ngopa. I was intrigued by the inclusion of some atypical (for Chinese cuisine, I know next to nothing about Tibetan) ingredients (garam masala, tomatoes) in a relatively straightforward noodle dish with carrot, celery, garlic, ginger, soy, and cilantro. I gave it a go, following the instructions dutifully. The results were really pretty bad.
The Problems:
1) The recipe has you adding the curry powder and diced tomato to an almost dry pan, right after the aromatics. If you follow the instructions, it has you adding no moisture other than one diced, cored tomato, and sauteeing for another 7 minutes in total. Garam masala likes to stick and burn, and a single diced tomato isn't enough moisture to prevent that.
2) Compounding this is the fact that they have you throw in the meat, carrots, and celery at the same time, and then cover it and let it cook for 5 minutes. You can't stir a covered pan. The tomatoes cooked so long they broke down and joined the garam masala in a black patina on the skillet, contributing only bitterness and black debris.
3) The thinly sliced beef is just tossed in, raw, untreated, and then allowed to cook for five full minutes, which is enough time to cook a medium-sized hamburger, let alone round sliced 'very thin.' However, it is only seasoned with the salt that was added before it, and the soy sauce in the final seasoning. The meat came out dry, leathery, and bland.
4) The recipe continually uses instructions like 'cook, stirring often, for two minutes... saute for two more minutes... cook for five minutes.' There should be instructions about visual signifiers of doneness. You couldn't spare one more inch to say things like 'cook till translucent, cook till tomatoes break down, saute until the curry powder becomes fragrant,' things like that? The author doesn't know what kind of pan I'm on, what kind of flame I'm on, or how often 'frequently' is to me. A recipe that isn't well-written isn't worth the column-inches.
The Fixes:
1) After I sliced the beef, I subjected it to a process the Chinese (apparently) call velveting. I sincerely wish I had a better word for it. Place the meat in a bowl. Add some corn (or potato) starch (say, a tablespoon per pound of meat), and toss to coat. It won't be dusty and white, it'll just look a little paler with a few white spots. Add a splash of brandy and a splash of soy sauce, toss it all together, and let it sit for a few minutes.
2) Never be afraid to add a splash of water! You can't just saute stuff in an almost dry pan till it's done. At every saute station in the universe there's either a bain-marie of warm chicken stock or a squeeze bottle of water on hand. I'm not saying drown everything, but as soon as stuff starts to catch, give it a little squirt. It will release what's starting to stick, and make that now-semi-caramelized substance glaze everything in the pan.
3) The tomatoes lost all of their identity. Tomatoes cook really fast, why add them before the beef? I used rainbow cherry tomatoes, and just halved them, instead of chopping them.
4) The original recipe calls for the carrots to be 'sliced.' How thick? It calls for the celery to be 'chopped.' How fine? Use your words, Saveur. I wanted my celery to retain its identity the way the carrots did, so I peeled both and bias-sliced them 1/4" thick.
5) The times are out. Signifiers of doneness are in.
Before we get into the improved recipe, check out the photo below:
On the right is Saveur's way, on the left is mine. These photos didn't have the best focus, but they were the angles that really show the difference. First, note that the one on the right is full of black grit. That's the tomatoes, the garam masala, and most of the ginger and garlic! Second, note that in the left you can see some tomato (top center) and celery (upper right corner), whereas in the right, you can see none. Finally, just look at the beef. The right is visibly dry and kind of shriveled, while the one on the left glistens with life.
Improved Tibetan Beef Noodles
MEP
1# strip steak, trimmed of fat and cut 1/4" thick, 'velveted' in cornstarch, brandy, and soy (see above)
Vegetable oil, as needed
1 small-medium sweet onion, sliced thin
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, minced
200g rainbow cherry tomatoes, halved
1-2 t garam masala
1 large rib of celery (~200g), peeled and sliced 1/4" thick
2 medium carrots (~200g), peeled and sliced 1/4" thick
300g cooked noodles (see note)
soy sauce as needed
1/2 bunch cilantro, chiffonade
Method
1) Heat a film of oil in a large saute pan over medium high heat until it ripples
2) Add onions, garlic, and ginger all at once, and saute until slightly translucent.
3) Add carrots and celery and cook until they just begin to soften, about a minute
4) Add the beef and toss or stir, making sure the pieces of beef don't stick together in a starchy mess
5) Once the meat is beginning to get a golden-brown sear in places, add the tomatoes and masala, and toss.
6) Stir-fry until the tomatoes are wilting, the vegetables are translucent, and the beef is cooked. During this process, add a splash of water any time it starts to catch on the bottom, and scrape the bottom with a rubber spatula. I cannot overstate the importance of this process.
7) When the beef is cooked, the tomatoes are wilted, and the veg is semi-cooked but still pleasingly firm, add the noodles and a splash of soy. Toss and adjust seasoning with soy and additional garam masala, if necessary. It shouldn't taste like an Indian curry, but should have a pronounced curry note.
8) Add some chopped cilantro and toss again. Plate, and top with a little more cilantro.
A Note on Noodles
For this recipe, I used these fresh Shandong-style noodles from my excellent local Asian market, H&L, on picturesque Rivers Avenue in a more cosmopolitan stretch of North Charleston. If you have a pot of water on when you're doing your stir fry and start them when you add the carrots, you will have time to get them cooked while everything else comes together. If they get done right as the stir-fry does, that's a win. If not, toss them with a little oil and leave them hot. You'll be done before they have a chance to get gluey. If using dried capellini, just cook it in advance, oil it, and let it cool.
The folks at H&L have a whole range of these noods, and I'm trying to try them all. They are inexpensive, and they have a great shelf life (at least two weeks from when the bag is opened). Now I'm the first to admit that Shandong is approximately nowhere near Tibet, but neither is Italy, and the Saveur recipe called for capellini, so I think I'm in the clear, from an authenticity standpoint.
Keep up the good work, Saveur, but I got my eye on you.
-JS
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