Cooking Class- March- Radishes and Beef Dishes

For those of you who are tired of looking at the same old soup recipe, and for heaven’s sake, isn’t it spring, and shouldn’t we have something a little lighter to eat, here is the latest installment from the cooking class. As usual, we met to watch a couple of chefs cook two recipes for us. We are all given hand outs with the recipes printed in English and Chinese. The owner of the restaurant stands near the chef and then calls out the method for the recipe, and usually Jessica translates into English for us. There is usually also lots of involvement from his wife, who stands at the back and chats with us and keeps him on the straight and narrow. Amidst lots of laughter and talking, we usually get the recipes done. There are always errors ( of omission, of bad translation) with the recipe list and lots of confusion. I think that both of these are quite simple, and that the ingredients are easy to find.

Beef with Black Peppercorn


250 grams of beef sliced (use sirloin or tenderloin)
1 big onion (we used a red one)
2 tbsp of sugar
1 tbsp of Dark Soya sauce
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp corn starch (make a slurry in water)
1 tbsp oster sauce
½ tsp of salt (or to taste)
1 egg, lightly beaten
½ tbsp chicken granules
50 ml of water
dash of black pepper, and black pepper sauce
20 ml red wine


Take the sliced meat , oyster sauce, soya sauce, sugar and chicken essence and mix together. Beat egg and add to meat, then add some of the corn starch slurry- mixture should be dry. Set aside and refrigerate for six hours.
After refrigeration, cook beef in butter to medium rare. Remove and fry onions in the remaining butter until soft . Add red wine to onions, then add beef, more oyster sauce, dark soya sauce, black pepper, black pepper sauce, sugar and a little water, to make a sauce. If too thin, use corn starch slurry.

** The difficult part of this recipe is that usually the kitchen chefs make larger batches; asking them to list the ingredients, and to provide the measurements, is always a challenge. These professionals cook by look and taste. So you can play around with it a little.

Radishes with Coriander

Large handful of red radishes
Coriander leaves (cilantro)
2 tbsp sugar
½ tbsp salt
1 tbsp dark vinegar
1 tbsp of sesame oil ( this last one was debated a bit- some of us thought that this would be a bit too much- so perhaps start with 1 tsp or ½ tbsp)

With a large knife, or heavy pot, smash the radishes. * Marinade in salted water for several hours. After marinating, squeeze excess water, transfer to a bowl and mix well with all of the seasonings. Let sit for awhile. Before serving, garnish with cilantro.
* you could also use any other type of radish- Japanese daikon, kohlrabi, someone even suggested using cucumbers.



Happy eating!