Beef Lo Mein
When I woke up Wednesday morning, I peeked into the fridge to see what I could make for dinner and I went into one of those fridge comas where you don’t realize that you’re staring into the abyss with the door wide open for about fifteen minutes. I got so frustrated by the random mix of ingredients and my loss for creativity that I opened the dreaded “Take Out Menu” drawer. After scrolling through nine different Chinese Food menus that I yanked out of my mailbox (they’re all the same anyway, I have no idea what I was looking for) a lightbulb went on in my head. I had some fresh Chinese Lo Mein noodles in the fridge and a hodgepodge of vegetables… I could make my own Chinese Food!
This was a daring move because I have never really attempted to make Lo Mein but I have been experimenting with a lot of Asian flavors recently so I went for it. I picked up a skirt steak from the grocery store and rushed back to get it into a marinade. Skirt steak is one of my favorite cuts of beef because it is ridiculously flavorful and super inexpensive; the key to its tenderness is in the angle in which you slice it.
I raided the fridge and pantry and came up with a marinade consisting of soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic, ponzu, dried ginger, chilies, honey, and fresh tangerines. A perfect balance of heat, sweet, salty, bitter, and Umami… yes Umami. The proposed “fifth sense” that has become more widely known as of recently; is tricky to describe. Umami is due to the detection of carboxylate anion and glutamic acid, a natural occurring acid in meat, cheese, broth, stock, and other protein-rich foods and serves as a flavor enhancer… I just call it savory, rich, and earthy (soy sauce has all these components).
After about eight hours in its Umami rich bath, I simply grilled the steak to medium-rare and sliced it thinly against the grain of the meat, making sure to save the marinade which I reduced later to saute the vegetables. I had some spinach, radish, and shallots and that was about it so I sauteed the spinach, cut the radish into matchsticks, and fried the shallots to add some crunch to the Lo Mein. The noodles only took a few minutes to cook and in no time I was tossing all of the components together with a little sesame oil.
When it comes to spicy Asian food, I typically turn to semi-sweet Alsacian whites such as the 2007 Domaine Zind Humbrecht Gewurztraminer. The acidity that this wine lacks is made up for with tons of fruit and minerality. It is full gold in color and has aromas of ginger, clove, and herbal tea. On the palate, the fruit hits you boldly up front with tons of lime, tangerine, and honey but it finishes with a peppery crispness.
The oily, nutty-ness of the sesame oil and the salty soy sauce worked perfectly with the sweet flavors in the Gewurztraminer. The one thing I learned from this experience is that Chinese food at 3:00 am after the bar is good, but homemade Chinese food is better!
