Controversial…at times I do find Chinese cooking bland and a little to samey! This doesn’t put me off from trying to cook it. The attraction for me is making quick meals with very few ingredients which creates cost effective dishes.

This dish cost me £5.75 last night. Ok I had virtually all the ingredients in the cupboard and I only had to buy one piece of sirloin which was reduced, beansprouts and spring onions but it still cost £5.75 no less.

What I like about Chinese cooking is you have to be on point with your prep. The prep is the longest part of the process due to the high heat you’re cooking at.

This recipe was taken from Ching-He Huang’s cook book – Chings Fast Food. I’ve tried a number of recipes from her book. Love how simple the recipes are. Anyone at any level of cooking can pick her book up and produce some really nice dishes.

Ingredients- 1 piece of sirloin with the fat cut off, 1 tbsp of groundnut oil, 150g or fresh beansprouts, 1 tsp of cornflour mixed with 1 tbsp of water, 2 spring onions finely chopped.

For the marinade – 2 cloves of garlic crushed, 2 tbsp of grated ginger ( I used the garlic & ginger pastes I have for Indian cooking) 2 tbsp of light soy, 1 tsp of dark soy, 1 tsp of soft brown sugar & 2 tbsp of mirin.

This dish literally has 3 steps for cooking. But before you start this process put your rice on. The rice can cook then sit to one side steaming itself whilst you quickly cook the main dish.

As you put the rice on you can prepare the marinade allowing the beef to sit having a flavour party for 20 minutes or so.

Take all the marinade ingredients and mix them in a bowl together. Add the strips of beef coating it all. If I’m honest, the piece of fat I removed also went in but that was just for me to eat!! I was very fortunate as I had help from Boba Fett.

Once the beef has had a good marinade. The simple cook process takes place.

Heat the wok. As the wok starts to smoke add the groundnut oil. Remove the beef from the marinade making sure you keep the marinade. Add the beef to the oil searing the beef for 2 / 3 minutes.

The beef as mentioned takes a couple of minutes then add the cornflour mix, the marinade and the beansprouts.

Again the beansprouts take a couple of minutes, keep stirring ensuring everything is coated. Add the spring onions and serve. Ensure the spring onions have a lovely crunch.

This whole dish including the prep takes 30 minutes from start to finish.

Really appreciate you taking the time to read my ramblings.

Lots of love ❤️