Okay, so. I made this recipe for the first time last month and it was the first time I had ever cooked mince (or ground beef) and it went terribly, so my confidence was a little knocked coming into tonight. Previously my husband had gotten a suspicious stomach ache after having eaten my mince meal and my mother in-law put half of her meal in the fridge claiming she would: "eat it later". B U T I was determined to redeem myself and this recipe, so I attempted, Asian Beef Bowls, again.
The recipe I used came from the blog, RecipeTin Eats (https://www.recipetineats.com/asian-beef-bowls/), which is written by a really cool cook named, Nagi. I discovered her blog a couple of months ago and have bookmarked at least 4 other recipes I want to try (one is another beef mince recipe but it includes chili, so wish me luck!.. Or rather, wish my family luck, lol).
'What went wrong last time?' you may be asking? Well, I shall address this question as you come with me through this fresh new start that didn't go wrong at all. Not even a little. (I know it sounds like I'm being a sarcastic douche-bag but things did actually go pretty well for once).
⇐⇐ Nagi's blog is super helpful in the way it always includes a one minute video of the methods for her recipes. So I shall leave that here for your viewing pleasure (and also because mine did not look nearly as good as this).
What I uuuuused:
- 1kg Minced Beef
- 1/2 a large Onion
- 4 Garlic Cloves
- 1 C Scallions (or spring onions)
- 1/2 Tbsp Salt
- 1 Tbsp Olive Oil
- Sesame Seeds to garnish
Aaand for the Sauce:
- 1 Tbsp Hoisin Sauce
- 2 Tbsp Oyster Sauce
- 3 Tbsp Dark Soy Sauce
- 1 tsp Brown Sugar
- 1 tsp Sesame Oil
- A crap tone of pepper (cause I fcking love the stuff)
In my previous attempt at this recipe I discovered I had 2x as much beef-mince as Nagi suggested in her recipe. So my natural conclusion was: 'That means I have to double everything in the sauce!'. This was a bad idea. I'm not sure if it was because there was a myriad of other things that went wrong, or if I'm just really bad at measuring ingredients, but the flavor of the sauce was too overpowering and a bit much for the mince to handle. This time around, I decided to tone the sauce down by quite a lot. Just to see how it went.. Also (l o l) I didn't have all the exact ingredients.. so, woops.
Step 1: Prepping the Ingredients
I learnt from, Mike G, over at, Pro Home Cooks, on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/user/BrothersGreenEats/featured), that it's always best to P R E P everything you're going to use before you actually begin cooking because it helps to streamline the entire process.
So I:
- Minced my Garlic Cloves
- Diced my Half Onion
- Chopped up my Scallions
- Mixed up my Sauce concoction
- And (not shown here) I salted my beef-mince. Not too much though, because there's quite a lot of soy sauce in the sauce.. which we already know is very salty.
Step 2: The Onions, Garlic and Mince
Samin Nosrat, chef and host of the show, Salt Fat Acid Heat, on, Netflix, taught me the absolute importance of heating your pan before adding your oil. Then heating your oil before you add your first ingredient. This will help ensure that very little sticks to the pan itself. Now I always make sure I do so before I begin cooking.
More often than not I have forgotten to freaking caramelize (or at least brown) the onions and garlic before I throw the meat in willy-nilly. But the more I cook the more it becomes natural to do.
So, Exhibit A) I brown my Onions and Garlic in maybe a 1 Tbsp of Olive Oil. If that.
Exhibit B) This is the part that went horribly wrong last time and here's why:
- I was unaware that you are meant to use very little oil when cooking mince. I used far too much and almost none of it was burnt away and stayed right up until it was plated. This made it look and taste all kinds of wrong.
- I had also added all of my mince at once. The liquid from within the mince released, mixed with the oil, and would not seem to burn off.. I'm sure there are many sciencey reasons for this but I don't know them. Basically, it was a mess. And I regret my part in this catastrophe e-v-e-r-y-day.
I did a bit of research and found this short article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/techniques/how_to_brown_mince, by BBC which helped me immensely this time around.
When my Onions and Garlic were nice and brown I slowly began to add my Beef-Mince a small palm full at a time. I would wait until the previous palm full had browned before adding another. And it fcking worked, man! The Mince released little to none of its juice. I couldn't believe it. I was so happy. Probably a little too happy if I'm honest.
Step 3: Sauce Sauce Sauce I added the Sauce. Mixed it through until the Mince was evenly coated and had had a few moments to soak in the flavor. Tasted. Thought 'Holy sh*t. This actually tastes freaking good!'. Added my Scallions.. and fed my awaiting family.
In Conclusion: I'm probably way too proud of this meal
Nagi said that this meal would take less than half an hour to make and it took me a little over an hour (I'm pretty certain more than half of this time was spent scrutinizing. So Nagi is probably right).
I think the best thing I can ask for when I've cooked a meal is empty plates and no left-overs. And tonight this is what I got. Which I am so (it's actually sad) proud of! My husband loved it this time around saying: 'It was waaaay better'. And my mother in-law wants me to cook it again.
Okay so I better talk about the actual meal: The amount of sauce I made for the weight of mince I cooked was pretty spot on and met my flavor preference (the flavors in the sauce were there but they didn't drown out the natural flavor of the meat). And the meat was surprisingly juicy. Nagi promises that it will be juicy and the recipe definitely delivers on that.
Overall I'm going to call this a success and I will for sure cook this meal again in the future.
Can I also just say there is something so nice about cooking a meal for your family and having them sit down and enjoy it together. I've had a pretty crap week and I being able to come home, step out of my mind for a minute, by way of cooking and focusing on and completing a set process in-front of me, was therapeutic AF. Not only completing that process but completing it to a decent standard. It just felt good, my dudes. I heard, Roy Choi, say on, The Chef Show, on Netflix, that (and I'm hella paraphrasing here) 'If you're having a rough day. You should just come home and cook something. Because the act of creating and finishing something will make you feel way better'. And I'm beginning to find a lot of truth in that.
#cooking #beefmince #beginnercook #mincerecipe #easy #quick #mince #dinner #meal
The recipe I used came from the blog, RecipeTin Eats (https://www.recipetineats.com/asian-beef-bowls/), which is written by a really cool cook named, Nagi. I discovered her blog a couple of months ago and have bookmarked at least 4 other recipes I want to try (one is another beef mince recipe but it includes chili, so wish me luck!.. Or rather, wish my family luck, lol).
'What went wrong last time?' you may be asking? Well, I shall address this question as you come with me through this fresh new start that didn't go wrong at all. Not even a little. (I know it sounds like I'm being a sarcastic douche-bag but things did actually go pretty well for once).
⇐⇐ Nagi's blog is super helpful in the way it always includes a one minute video of the methods for her recipes. So I shall leave that here for your viewing pleasure (and also because mine did not look nearly as good as this).
What I uuuuused:
- 1kg Minced Beef
- 1/2 a large Onion
- 4 Garlic Cloves
- 1 C Scallions (or spring onions)
- 1/2 Tbsp Salt
- 1 Tbsp Olive Oil
- Sesame Seeds to garnish
Aaand for the Sauce:
- 1 Tbsp Hoisin Sauce
- 2 Tbsp Oyster Sauce
- 3 Tbsp Dark Soy Sauce
- 1 tsp Brown Sugar
- 1 tsp Sesame Oil
- A crap tone of pepper (cause I fcking love the stuff)
In my previous attempt at this recipe I discovered I had 2x as much beef-mince as Nagi suggested in her recipe. So my natural conclusion was: 'That means I have to double everything in the sauce!'. This was a bad idea. I'm not sure if it was because there was a myriad of other things that went wrong, or if I'm just really bad at measuring ingredients, but the flavor of the sauce was too overpowering and a bit much for the mince to handle. This time around, I decided to tone the sauce down by quite a lot. Just to see how it went.. Also (l o l) I didn't have all the exact ingredients.. so, woops.
Step 1: Prepping the Ingredients
I learnt from, Mike G, over at, Pro Home Cooks, on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/user/BrothersGreenEats/featured), that it's always best to P R E P everything you're going to use before you actually begin cooking because it helps to streamline the entire process.So I:
- Minced my Garlic Cloves
- Diced my Half Onion
- Chopped up my Scallions
- Mixed up my Sauce concoction
- And (not shown here) I salted my beef-mince. Not too much though, because there's quite a lot of soy sauce in the sauce.. which we already know is very salty.
Step 2: The Onions, Garlic and Mince Samin Nosrat, chef and host of the show, Salt Fat Acid Heat, on, Netflix, taught me the absolute importance of heating your pan before adding your oil. Then heating your oil before you add your first ingredient. This will help ensure that very little sticks to the pan itself. Now I always make sure I do so before I begin cooking.
More often than not I have forgotten to freaking caramelize (or at least brown) the onions and garlic before I throw the meat in willy-nilly. But the more I cook the more it becomes natural to do.
So, Exhibit A) I brown my Onions and Garlic in maybe a 1 Tbsp of Olive Oil. If that.
- I was unaware that you are meant to use very little oil when cooking mince. I used far too much and almost none of it was burnt away and stayed right up until it was plated. This made it look and taste all kinds of wrong.
- I had also added all of my mince at once. The liquid from within the mince released, mixed with the oil, and would not seem to burn off.. I'm sure there are many sciencey reasons for this but I don't know them. Basically, it was a mess. And I regret my part in this catastrophe e-v-e-r-y-day.
I did a bit of research and found this short article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/techniques/how_to_brown_mince, by BBC which helped me immensely this time around.
When my Onions and Garlic were nice and brown I slowly began to add my Beef-Mince a small palm full at a time. I would wait until the previous palm full had browned before adding another. And it fcking worked, man! The Mince released little to none of its juice. I couldn't believe it. I was so happy. Probably a little too happy if I'm honest.
Step 3: Sauce Sauce Sauce I added the Sauce. Mixed it through until the Mince was evenly coated and had had a few moments to soak in the flavor. Tasted. Thought 'Holy sh*t. This actually tastes freaking good!'. Added my Scallions.. and fed my awaiting family.In Conclusion: I'm probably way too proud of this meal
Nagi said that this meal would take less than half an hour to make and it took me a little over an hour (I'm pretty certain more than half of this time was spent scrutinizing. So Nagi is probably right).
I think the best thing I can ask for when I've cooked a meal is empty plates and no left-overs. And tonight this is what I got. Which I am so (it's actually sad) proud of! My husband loved it this time around saying: 'It was waaaay better'. And my mother in-law wants me to cook it again.
Okay so I better talk about the actual meal: The amount of sauce I made for the weight of mince I cooked was pretty spot on and met my flavor preference (the flavors in the sauce were there but they didn't drown out the natural flavor of the meat). And the meat was surprisingly juicy. Nagi promises that it will be juicy and the recipe definitely delivers on that.
Overall I'm going to call this a success and I will for sure cook this meal again in the future.
Can I also just say there is something so nice about cooking a meal for your family and having them sit down and enjoy it together. I've had a pretty crap week and I being able to come home, step out of my mind for a minute, by way of cooking and focusing on and completing a set process in-front of me, was therapeutic AF. Not only completing that process but completing it to a decent standard. It just felt good, my dudes. I heard, Roy Choi, say on, The Chef Show, on Netflix, that (and I'm hella paraphrasing here) 'If you're having a rough day. You should just come home and cook something. Because the act of creating and finishing something will make you feel way better'. And I'm beginning to find a lot of truth in that.
#cooking #beefmince #beginnercook #mincerecipe #easy #quick #mince #dinner #meal
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