Timo wrote:
> On Monday, 28 January 2013 13:53:16 UTC+10, Judy Haffner wrote:
>> Am wondering if you had ever gone to a restaurant and ordered something
>> on the menu that was real delicious, but when you asked for the recipe,
>> they would not reveal it?
>
> I had a very tasty beef, cumin, and fresh coriander dish in Beijing. The menu was in Chinese, none of the staff were fluent in English, I didn't have a pen with me to write down the name of the dish.
>
> Not knowing what it's called makes it harder to find a recipe.
>
> I didn't duplicate it exactly, but did make a similar tasty dish. I also found a similar recipe in Fuchsia Dunlop's Hunan cookbook. I'm happy with the results, but I remember the original being better. I probably use less oil, and my wok doesn't stay hot enough (on electric stove).

Try the recipe in Fuchsia Dunlop's book, Every Grain of Rice,
which just came out in the United States. I was looking at
reviews of the recipes. and many people raved about the Beef with
Cumin recipe. One person thought he/she would use 2 bell peppers,
one person said he/she would increase the cumin and chiles. (Note
that I also saw a discussion of chiles, and the really hot
peppers, e.g., Thai bird's eye chiles, are NOT appropriate for the
recipes. Rather one should use larger, milder peppers, such as
Penzey's Tientsin chiles or Swad's unnamed dried ones.) Yet
another person suggested garnishing with cilantro instead of
scallions, which sounds like what you want to do.
If you want, I will compare the recipe in EGoR with that in her
Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook.

Jean B.