Recipe: Flash-fried venison and broccoli with ginger and spring onion
Serves 2
Preparation time: 15 minutes plus marinating
Cooking time: 5 minutes
- A thumb-sized piece of ginger
- 2 spring onions
- 5-10 stems of tenderstem broccoli or kai lan
- 200g-300g venison steaks
- A handful of deep-fried shallots (optional)
- 1½tbs vegetable oil
The marinade
- 1tbs light soy sauce
- 2tbs Shaoxing rice wine
- 1tsp sesame oil
- ½tbs cornflour
The sauce
- 2tbs tamarind concentrate
- 1tlbs hoisin sauce
- 1tbs ketjap manis (sweet soy sauce)
- 50ml chicken stock
Slice the ginger and spring onions into fine matchsticks. Chop the broccoli or kai lan stems into thirds, then blanch them in boiling water for two minutes. Drain and set aside.
Slice the venison steaks into large 1cm-2cm chunks, put them in a mixing bowl and add all the marinade ingredients except the cornflour. Using your hands, massage the ingredients into the meat pieces until they are well coated, then add the cornflour and repeat until everything is well combined. For best results, leave the meat to marinade overnight in the fridge. Mix the sauce ingredients together in a small bowl or ramekin.
Build your wok clock: place your sliced ginger at 12 o'clock, then arrange the spring onions, venison, broccoli, sauce bowl and deep-fried shallots, if using, clockwise around your plate.
Heat one tablespoon of vegetable oil in a wok over a high heat until smoking hot. Add the ginger and half the spring onion and stir-fry for one minute, until the spring onions have softened.
Push the ingredients to the side of the wok, add the remaining tablespoon of oil to the centre and return to smoking point. Add the venison, cover with the ginger and spring onions and stir-fry for one minute.
Add the broccoli, pour over the sauce and bring to a vigorous boil. Cook, stirring, for 30 seconds, then spoon into a serving bowl. Scatter over the remaining spring onion and the deep-fried shallots, if using, and serve.
Tip: Tamarind lends a dish its natural sour flavour and it can be found in various forms: in its pods, with its seeds in a block of paste, or as a sieved concentrate. If you use it a lot, I recommend that you buy the paste and thin it down with water yourself at home.
Recipe from Chinese Unchopped by Jeremy Pang. Photography by Martin Poole