Tom’s ginger beef stir fry has the perfect balance of spicy, crispy, crunchy, chewy and fresh. I usually tweak when I follow recipes but with this one I never change a thing. It’s genius.
Crispy ginger beef stir fry with noodles – that’s a sentence in which every word sounds awesome, even ‘with’. It’s Tom Kerridge’s recipe from The Times on Saturday and it immediately caught my eye because see above; to the extent that I actually cut the page out of the paper and saved it, like an old-fashioned recipe nerd.
I made it several times since and – however much I usually try to tweak the original – never changed a thing; it’s simply genius. The beef is REALLY crispy, unlike numerous Oriental recipes where the meat might have been crispy at one point during the cooking process but then got dunked in – albeit delicious – sauce and the crispiness went away. It’s cooked separately here and then sat atop the noodle stir fry, gloriously and triumphantly.
The stir fry is just right: greenery goes well with beef and edamame are the beans I’ve now started to use more often in stir fries because of the divine crunch they add. And the pickled radishes, which you might be tempted to skip but by no means should, are just the perfect topping of freshness and yet more crunch.
It is Tom’s take on the traditional takeaway-style ginger beef but so much better. Do they ever give you pickled radish for garnish at your local Lots of Rice? And all the MSG in the world won’t improve the flavour any more.
I have made it without noodles too during my carb-shy phase. If you do that, the veg need to be bulked up a bit by adding perhaps a green pepper thinly sliced, or a couple of matchsticked carrots for the colour contrast. Those will need to be added at point 6 below, before adding spring onions and pak choi stems. Of course you can also make this version and serve it with plain rice if that’s your preference.