Enoki Mushroom Wrapped Beef

So far, a lot of the recipes we've posted have been heavily influenced by North American cooking styles. And so we thought... why not post something Asian inspired? We are Asian after all! Now don't get us wrong, although we post a lot of North American inspired recipes, we love our Asian food! The thing that's difficult with Asian cooking is that... there are no recipes. We usually never have recipes for anything we cook! The beauty about Asian cooking is that there are never any exact measurements or steps for anything... the only requirement to be good at Asian cooking is that you have working tastebuds. The one principle to remember about Asian cooking: taste and adjust everything along the way. That being said, it's a little harder for us to post some of our more Asian inspired dishes... because we never have recipes for them. But this time around, we made sure to note everything down as well as exact measurements for our fellow readers out there that are new to some Asian flavors! This enoki wrapped beef, is great as an appetizer or side. We wouldn't recommend serving it as a main entree because it really isn't all that filling, unless you have a plate of fried rice or noodles to go along with it.

Ingredients:

Enoki mushrooms

1-2 packs of thinly sliced sukiyaki beef

Cornstarch and water mixture

Glaze:

3 TBSP oyster sauce

2 TBSP mirin (sweet Japanese rice wine)

1 TSP soy sauce

3 TBSP water

DISCLAIMER: Shop at your local Asian grocery store for these ingredients. We made the mistake of going to a regular grocery store, and found almost nothing.

A couple of things about the ingredients... how much enoki you buy, will depend on how many of these you want to make. The ingredients for the sauce, will be enough for about 15-20 of the wraps. We ended up making about 15 of them. Another note about the beef, is really you can use any beef you want to. We chose to use the ready sliced, thin sukiyaki beef to save us the extra work of having to pound out and slice some meat. What's great about the ready to cook sukiyaki beef is that it is already thinly sliced, and the perfect size to wrap around your enoki. If you can't find the sukiyaki beef at your local Asian grocery, we recommend sirloin. Just pound and tenderize them out so they become thinner, and slice to the appropriate sizes.

Procedure:

1. Wash your enoki and trim off the edges.
2. Mix some cornstarch and water together to make a little paste. Make sure that it is not too runny.
3. Grab a bunch of the enoki, and wrap a slice of the beef around it using the cornstarch water mixture as a glue to seal the beef around the enoki. (Note: the enoki will shrink once cooked, therefore wrap the beef as tight as possible).

   

   Enoki Wrapped Beef before searing and cooking

4. Heat up some oil in a non-stick skillet, and place your enoki wrapped beef in the pan.
5. Rotate the wraps until all sides of the beef have been seared.
6. Once the beef has been seared, pour your glaze mixture in and simmer the wraps until the mushrooms are soft (about 3-5 minutes). (Note: if your pan is not big enough to fit all of your wraps, you might want to save half the glaze mixture so you can do another batch)

   

   Adding the glaze

7. Once the mushrooms are tender, remove the wraps and place on a serving tray. (Note: At this point, the mushrooms and beef should be fully glazed and flavored. You may or may not choose to pour the remaining sauce in the pan over the wraps - we did because the glaze is delicious)

Enoki Wrapped Beef ready to serve