Mongolian Beef

Recipe from Lawrence C.C. Chu

In Mongolia, cattle herders move with their cattle across the open range like American cowboys once did. They cook their meals over an open fire, using ingredients on hand or seasonings that transport easily. This beef dish, cooked the same way over hot, direct heat, uses just a few basic seasonings for flavour.

Yields:

4-6 servings

Time Required:

10 mins. cooking time

Ingredients:

1 lb. (0.45 kg) flank steak, trimmed

Marinade

2 tsp.¹ (10 mL) light or regular soy sauce
2 Tbsp. (30 mL) water
Pinch white pepper²
2 tsp. (5.4 g) corn starch (US/Canada), aka cornflour (UK/other)³
2 Tbsp. (30 mL) vegetable oil

1 bunch green onions

Sauce

3 Tbsp. (45 mL) soy sauce
1 Tbsp. (15 mL) dry sherry
1 tsp. (4 g) sugar

¼ cup (60 mL) vegetable oil
10 thumb-size slices fresh ginger

Cornstarch paste⁴

Preparation:

Cut flank steak against the grain into ⅛ by 1 by 1 ½" (3 x 25 x 38 mm) slices. Then combine with MARINADE ingredients in the order listed; mix well and set aside. Cut onions into 1 ½" (38 mm) -long pieces, then separate outer layers from inner ones. Combine SAUCE ingredients; set aside.

To stir-fry, set wok (or wide frying pan) over high heat for 1 min. until hot. Add oil and swirl pan to coat sides. When oil is very hot, add beef, stirring to distribute evenly in pan and to sear both sides. Add ginger, stirring until fragrant. Add green onion; mix well and stir for 30 secs. Pour in sauce, stir-fry quickly until green onion starts to wilt. Slightly thicken with 1 tsp. (5 mL) cornstarch paste, and serve.

Author's Notes

This kind of stir-frying must be done over high heat for only a short period of time, to bring out the flavour of the ingredients.

¹ Quarts, pints, cups, tablespoons, teaspoons, and fl. oz. are as defined in US Customary Units, not to be confused with differing British imperial, "legal", "coffee", Commonwealth of Nations, Canadian, Latin American, Japanese, Russian, or Dutch definitions — further proof that everyone needs the metric system.

² White pepper is the same Piper nigrum berry seed as is sold as black pepper, except left to fully ripen, fermented in water, and the black outer coat removed. Accordingly, it has a milder flavour and lighter colour. Otherwise, one is a natural substitute for the other.

³ "Corn starch" is powdered starch processed from the New World grain maize (from Spanish, orig. from Nahuatl), which grain the USA/Canada call "corn", unlike the rest of the English-speaking world, which reserves "corn" to mean cereal grains generically. This starch product, needed here in its customary role as a thickening agent, is called "corn starch" in the US/Canada, but "cornflour" in the UK and most other anglophone lands — not to be confused with whole maize grain: That product — not a thickening agent — is called "polenta", "corn meal", or "corn flour" in the US/Canada, depending on how finely milled, and called "maize flour" in the UK and most other places. Australians should beware that their "cornflour" is starch extracted from wheat kernel, sometimes more-helpfully labelled as "wheaten cornflour". As if that weren't confusing enough, the maize-based thickener may be labelled (in Australia) either as "corn flour" or as "corn starch", so beware. Further, the maize flour product, there, is labelled as "cornmeal".

Note that whole-maize grain is traditionally, in Meso-American cultures of origin, wisely soaked in alkaline solution ("nixtamalised") to increase bioavailability and thereby prevent niacin deficiency (pellagra), among other important benefits, yielding "masa" (lit. dough) aka "masa de maíz" (lit. maize dough), also available in dried & ground form as "masa harina" (lit. dough flour) aka "harina de maíz" (lit. maize flour), and in its unground form, hominy. As further complication, Americans distinguish "corn flour", meaning prepared from maize endosperm only, from "maize flour" for use of whole maize — the former, neutral-flavoured; the latter, much more nutritious.

Origin of the naming mess: Originally, North America shared with Mother England the language's original meaning of "corn" to mean cereal grains generically (from Old English "corn" meaning single seed of any cereal plant, orig. from Proto-Germanic "kurnam" meaning small seed). The colonists got the gift of maize from native peoples, therefore at first calling it "Indian corn". Later, in the USA and Canada, "Indian corn" got worn down to just "corn", while the original meaning of "corn" was lost, locally. "Maize" is thus now the least-ambiguous term in international contexts, though many Americans either don't know that word or reserve it for variants from Latin-American (and Spanish) cooking.

⁴ Cornstarch paste is a thin paste made from equal parts of cold water and corn starch. It's essential in many Chinese dishes (but be careful not to over-thicken). Stir just before using. Store covered in the refrigerator for 1-2 days.

Taken from: Lawrence C.C. Chu's classic cookbook Chef Chu's Distinctive Cuisine Of China, p. 143. published 1980 by Harper and Row, which can be checked out in scanned format at Internet Archive. Thank you! (Chu's the chef / restaurateur of beloved local restaurant Chef Chu's, in Los Altos, California.)

Collected and re-published at http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/recipes/mongolian-beef.html by Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> on Oct. 4, 2026. Individual recipes are free from copyright. Share and enjoy!

(If I have any copyright title in my own very minor contributions to this page — not my intention — they were created in 2026 by Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> and licensed for use under CC0. I have thereby waived all copyright, compilation copyright, and related or neighbouring rights to this work. This work is published from: United States of America.)