How do I get the "right" style of Mongolian Beef?

March 27, 2018 12:11 PM

My all-time favorite American Chinese restaurant dish is Mongolian Beef. Whenever I order Mongolian Beef at a restaurant, though, it's a tossup as to what kind of Mongolian Beef I'll get.

It's always one of two ways. One, my favorite, is basically the way they serve it at P.F. Chang's -- stir-fried beef that is basically in a sweet soy-vinegar glaze, with lots of scallions. But more often, it's just beef slices and onion in a soupy brown sauce. It's as if they're two completely different dishes from different cuisines that share the same name. Is there a way to order it so I'll get the kind I like, or some way to tell (or ask) what kind a particular restaurant makes?

posted by Enemy of Joy to Food & Drink (16 answers total)

Response by poster: (I forgot to add -- I seem to be more likely to get the kind of Mongolian Beef I like at a place that bills itself as an "Asian grill" or other sort of pan-Asian restaurant, than a Chinese restaurant.)
posted by Enemy of Joy at 12:13 PM on March 27, 2018

With the little styrofoamy noodles on top or nah? Can you find a link of the kind you don't like so we can contrast it with the kind you do?
posted by masquesoporfavor at 12:48 PM on March 27, 2018

Response by poster: This is very close to the kind I don't like -- a lot of sauce, and the beef is more braised than stir fried. And yeah, ideally it should have the styrofoamy noodles on top! For some reason I have had terrible luck finding it that way. And I'm not sure if there is a way to ask for it that way, or if there's a way to know if a restaurant makes it that way. To date I've had to just rely on trial and error. Thanks!
posted by Enemy of Joy at 12:58 PM on March 27, 2018

Ok sorry, not trying to ChatFilter but I also have this problem so I'm curious--do you always order in the same region? I thought this was coastal but maybe it's not.
posted by masquesoporfavor at 1:21 PM on March 27, 2018

Response by poster: I was also wondering if it was a regional thing. When I lived in the Pacific Northwest, I did seem to encounter the "right" kind of Mongolian Beef pretty often, and that's where I developed a taste for it. But since then I've lived mostly in the Midwest and New Mexico/Nevada, and now that I think of it, it is in these locations where I've had trouble finding it.
posted by Enemy of Joy at 1:41 PM on March 27, 2018

Not quite what you're after, but if you're looking to perfect it on your own, I made this recipe the other day and it was just as you desire: crispy, scallion heavy, and delicious.
posted by msbutah at 1:47 PM on March 27, 2018 [7 favorites]

"Mongolian Beef" is a Chinese-American dish. As a result there is no traditional understanding of what it's supposed to be. Even for dishes for which there is a traditional understanding of what it is supposed to be there can be significant variation. For example, if Kung Pao chicken is saucy and/or doesn't include a lot of dry chilies and lip-tingling Sichuan peppercorns, it doesn't conform to the traditional understanding of what that dish is supposed to be.

Because there is no generally-accepted idea of what "Mongolian Beef" is, I imagine that there are any number of Chinese restaurants that offer something called "Monglian Beef" that is simply a "beef with scallions" dish from the cooks' culinary tradition that the restaurant found it expedient to brand "Mongolian Beef."

For me, if I'm in the mood for Kung Pao chicken I'm going to order from a Sichuan-style restaurant (not necessarily the same as one with "Sichuan" in the name of the business). This increases the likelihood that I'm going to get one that is dry and has lots of dry chilies and Sichuan peppercorn. The issue with ordering Mongolian Beef is that, because it's a Chinese-American dish, there are no easy signifiers that imply a better chance of getting the style that you like (other than going to P.F. Chang). It's not like you can go to a Mongolian restaurant and have a better chance of getting it the way you like it. My suggestion would be to ask whether it's a dry style or a saucy style before ordering it.
posted by slkinsey at 1:50 PM on March 27, 2018 [7 favorites]

Just to poke a hole in the hypothesized regional breakdown, my memory of Mongolian Beef from the Chicago suburbs (20 years ago with a sample size of one restaurant) is of the drier variety with the styrofoam-y noodles. (I've been a vegetarian for 15+ years and have never eaten Mongolian Beef elsewhere.)
posted by hoyland at 4:13 PM on March 27, 2018

I have been on the same quest most of my life (RIP Mongolian House) and it's been totally hit or miss, mostly miss. It is, however, not a hard dish to make if you have access to the ingredients - msbutah's recipe looks very close to what I've made, and it was worth it just to taste the correct version.
posted by restless_nomad at 7:13 PM on March 27, 2018

I am also originally from the PNW and I have given up on ordering Mongolian beef anywhere except the restaurant in my hometown when I visit. And then I get like 4 orders to take with me and eat it as a midnight snack over the next few nights because it's sooooo good and everywhere else does it wrong.

It's like trying to order salmon outside of the PNW. Just not worth the high risk of it being prepared wrong when you know what it should taste like.
posted by Jacqueline at 8:42 PM on March 27, 2018

I just thought I would let anyone who was interested know that this whole talk of Mongolian beef got me wanting to make my own, so I tried msbutah's version this evening. People, it is really, really good. My very fussy four year old told me that it might just be the best meal that I ever made. So there's that.
posted by Jubey at 2:22 AM on March 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

Just to chime in about the regional nature of this dish, this was also my favourite Chinese restaurant dish when I was growing up in San Francisco. It sounds like asking if it's 'dry' vs 'saucy' is the easiest way to check if it's the right one.

I can't find anything close to it in the UK. That linked recipe looks so good but 2 cups of oil! We don't fry things enough to justify that. sob
posted by like_neon at 3:03 AM on March 28, 2018

I thought 2 cups of oil was a lot too and I cut it down to about 3/4 of a cup and still made it work. I used about one pound of beef too, so on the lesser side.
posted by Jubey at 3:16 AM on March 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

That linked recipe looks so good but 2 cups of oil! We don't fry things enough to justify that.

If this is a meaningful barrier to trying something like this, you can always save the used oil for the next time you might want to fry something (even if it's just to saute onions or whatever). Used oil is actually better than fresh oil for frying anyway. While it's true that frying oil does break down eventually, there are plenty of things you can do to prolong its life. The most effective of these is this technique of using gelatin to clarify and rehabilitate used frying oil. If you don't have massive space constraints, having a quart bottle of dedicated frying oil stashed away for occasional use can be pretty handy.

Also, unless you're determined to throw away the oil after you use it for frying, there is no real reason to skimp on the oil. It's not like frying in one cup of oil will result in less oil retention in the food than frying in two or four cups of oil. The opposite is likely to be true, actually, as lesser amounts of oil will have a larger temperature drop when the food is introduced (lower frying temperatures = more oil retention).
posted by slkinsey at 7:28 AM on March 28, 2018

Sorry to threadjack, but this

you can always save the used oil for the next time you might want to fry something (even if it's just to saute onions or whatever)

just gave me a headslap moment. Duh, of course. I don't know why I was thinking that if I used 2 cups of oil for 'deep' frying, I would have to use it all again for another deep frying session. Of course I could just use a tablespoon at a time again whenever I'm cooking something (and it'll be faintly laced with beefy goodness!). This recipe is back on the table, thanks!
posted by like_neon at 7:38 AM on March 28, 2018

Not quite what you're after, but if you're looking to perfect it on your own, I made this recipe [link removed] the other day and it was just as you desire: crispy, scallion heavy, and delicious.

I know that we're supposed to "help find answers," not discuss other answers, but I tried this recipe and it just doesn't work at least the way it is written.

The problem is mostly with the beef-coating glop: 1 1/2 cup corn starch, 1 tsp baking soda, and 1 egg. I thought that sounded like an awful little bit of fluid for that much corn starch. Anyway, I "mixed" it up. I use the quotes because I was left with basically slightly chunky corn starch. It would not stick to anything. I hypothesized that the original working recipe said "1/2 cup," and they boned it, so I added two more eggs. This made it into basically a rheopectic fluid --you know, the stuff you fill a swimming pool with so you can You-Tube people running across the top of it.

I manage to "mix" (note sneer quotes) the meat in (see "rheopectic fluid) and fried it. At this point I began to suspect I'd been punked, because I could hardly pry the pieces apart to drop them in the oil, and my chopsticks ended up all covered with fried-on batter like a couple little canoe paddles.

I hoped it would all come together at the end. Well ... not so much. While the sauce did coat the meat, and it was still a bit crispy (where the batter hadn't come off), the flavor was mild--almost nonexistent.
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 3:37 PM on April 8, 2018