Hoisin-flavoured beef with baby corn and mushrooms

It's true that I'm not a big fan of red meat. Why? Well, because I think red meat (particularly beef and lamb) has a strong smell. But I find that if you season and cook them properly, they can actually be quite tasty. Except for lamb - it's a lost cause ;P

Believe it or not, I sometimes find it difficult to cook something, and when flipping through my recipe books and magazines fail to give me any good ideas, I fall back to improvising with whatever I have in the fridge and pantry. This particular one turned out pretty good, and (if I may say so myself) I actually enjoyed eating the beef!

I marinated the beef in vinegar and cornflour because I heard that they help tenderise the meat and keep it tender during the cooking process. This has always worked wonderfully with beef, but not so much with pork and I don't really know why. I have never cooked lamb so I can't say if this method works with lamb. I heard that the vinegar/cornflour thing is how the cooks in chinese restaurants keep their meat tender. (Well, I like to think they used vinegar/cornflour and not some other weirdo chemicals..)

With the dried mushrooms, if you forgot to soak them overnight (or don't have much prep time), chuck them in boiling hot water and let them soak for 30minutes.

Ingredients
500g beef, cut into strips

Marinade
1 tabspn soy sauce
1 tabspn hoisin sauce
1 tabspn cornflour
1 tabspn vinegar
1 tabspn mirin
1 tspn ground ginger
1/2 tspn dried chilli flakes
pepper

1 medium onion, thinly sliced into rings
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped or minced
1 tspn grated ginger
1 tabspn of hoisin sauce
6 dried mushrooms, soaked overnight in 1 cup water (reserve water) and sliced
1 can of baby corn, drained
water (enough to deglaze and make a little bit of gravy - maybe 1/2cup?)
soy sauce and pepper to taste

Method

Marinate the beef strips in the marinade for a few hours, overnight if possible. In a medium hot saucepan/wok, stirfry the onion until they are soft and almost (but not quite) brown then add the ginger and the garlic. Stirfry for maybe half a minute, turn up the heat and add the beef and sliced mushrooms. Stirfry for a further couple of minutes, then deglaze with the water, add the hoisin sauce and the baby corn. Keep cooking until the beef is cooked, taste and add soy sauce and pepper if desired. It's yummy served on rice with veges.