Monday I made the Sichuan Dry-Fried Beef from J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook. Kenji introduces dry frying as a technique where protein is fried to drive off moisture, and then stir-fried with a bit of aromatics that absorb “into the recently dessicated surfaces.”

For this, Kenji directs to fry matchstick-cuts of beef in a smaller amount of oil than the deep frying recipes. He calls for the oil and beef coming to temperature together. Once the beef has browned and crisped, but before it overcooks, the beef is removed to a paper-towel-lined plate.

Garlic, ginger, and chile bean paste are briefly stir-fried, then dried chiles, Sichuan peppercorns, the fried beef, sliced celery, and matchstick carrots are added and stir-fried together. Kenji calls for either er jing tiao or árbol chiles. I used (I think) chao tian jiao chiles I had on hand, which aren’t as hot (or so I understand).

Soy sauce, Chinkiang vinegar, Shaoxing wine, and sugar are added and everything is stir-fried until no liquid is remaining.

The end result was delicious. Probably because of my dried chile choice it was spicy but not too spicy. My son loved it (needing rice and milk to help with the spiciness). Megan liked it, but didn’t care for the texture of the matchstick-cut beef. I thought it was very good.

I’ll happily make this one again.

I am cooking my way through J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook. Read more about it.