Petite meat

Years ago I reviewed a restaurant with the awesome name of Jack’s Tapas Café, Mainly Chinese. My favorite dish there was a stir-fry of lamb and napa cabbage, with lots of rice vinegar.

I could eat stir-fried napa cabbage every day, but for some reason I’d never gotten around to recreating this recipe at home until last night. I thought it was great, and it makes a little meat (about $3 worth, in this case) go a long way. (Iris ate about half the lamb, but I was happy with spicy cabbage and rice.)

Here’s the way I made it last night, and I was very happy with it; obviously you can adjust this any way you like.

**SOUR NAPA CABBAGE WITH LAMB**
Serves 2 to 3 with rice

1 lamb shoulder chop, fat and bones discarded, meat sliced thin
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon rice wine
2 tablespoons peanut oil
1 large carrot, thinly sliced on the diagonal
1 small onion, thinly sliced
half a medium head of napa cabbage, shredded
1 clove garlic, minced

*For the sauce:*
3 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons rice wine
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon chile-garlic sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon cornstarch

1. Stir together the sauce ingredients until the sugar dissolves, and set aside. Stir the 1 teaspoon each of soy sauce and rice wine into the lamb.

2. Heat the peanut oil in a wok or large skillet over medium-high until it begins to smoke. Add the lamb and cook until well-browned but still slightly pink in spots, about 1 minute. Remove to a bowl, reserving the oil in the pan.

3. Add the carrot and onion to the pan and cook until the carrot slices are well browned on both sides, about 2 minutes. Add the cabbage and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until the cabbage is markedly reduced in volume and well browned in places, about 2 minutes. Add the reserved lamb and sauce and cook, stirring, until the sauce is thickened and coats the meat and vegetables, about 1 minute. Serve immediately with steamed rice.

7 thoughts on “Petite meat

  1. Dawn

    Funny, we got takeout from them last night and had their stir fried sour napa, too. Thanks for the recipe!

    Now someone needs to recreate the recipe for that fluffy sesame scallion bread. I can’t get enough of that stuff either.

  2. mamster Post author

    Oh yeah, that stuff is great. It’s been so long since I’ve been there that I don’t really know if my cabbage/lamb recipe is anything like theirs (I know they didn’t use carrots, and I don’t remember if theirs was spicy), but it’s certainly good.

  3. mamster Post author

    I dunno. It wouldn’t be hard to salt some cabbage and set it aside to ferment a bit and see if that comes close.

  4. Charles

    Just used this recipe for dinner with some friends tonight and it turned out perfectly.

    Thanks!

  5. Kelly from Maud-L

    I just made this for dinner tonight — YUM! (I doubled the sauce because my guys are sauce hounds.) I have a feeling this might get as much play in my house as the famous penne alla vodka from years ago.

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