On Monday, February 4, 2013 12:31:11 PM UTC+10, Jean B. wrote:
> Timo wrote:
>
> > 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.

I've not sat down and looked at the two side-by-side, but the EGOR recipe is essentially the RCC recipe simplified.

These days I tend to do a combination of the black bean chilli beef on pg 101 of EGOR and the beef with cumin recipe. Either the beef with cumin recipe with Laoganma sauce instead of dried chilli, or the black bean chilli recipe with a big spoonful of cumin. With plenty of coriander/cilantro. I like Laoganma sauce (AKA Guizhou black bean chilli sauce).

The beef with cumin is a standout recipe in both books. Another fine find in RCC was the salted chilli recipe. Drought was a bit harsh on my chilli plants, so I haven't made this for a while. Mapo tofu recipes in both are good, too. The EGOR recipe is vegetarian.

The other Chinese dish I first had at a restaurant and went and replicated was Dong Po pork, but that was easy because I knew what it was called.