Asian Style Beef Stew ala Culinarian Mom

This is my recipe for my Asian Style Beef Stew.

Ingredients:

• 250 to 300 grams beef, sirloin/ chunk, cut into cubes
  
• 2 cups water
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 1/2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 1/2 tsp sesame oil
• x black pepper, ground
  
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 pc white onion, chopped
• 1 pc green bell pepper, julienne
• 2 packs enoki mushroom* (any other variants will do)
• 2 tsp cornstarch dissolved in 2tbsp of room temp water
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1tsp soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp brown sugar
  

Procedure:

1. Put the first six ingredients in a pot. 
2. Bring it to boil, then simmer the beef for 1 1/2 hours or until the beef is tender.
3. Turn off the heat. Then strain the beef. Do not discard the stock/broth, it will be used later.
4. Heat a saute pan, then put the oil.
5. Saute the onion, garlic and then the beef.
6. Season the beef with the soy sauce & sugar.
7. Add the enoki mushroom and green bell pepper.
8. While doing this, do not stop stirring or else your beef & veggies might burn.
9. Add 1/2 cup of the stock/broth.
10. Simmer and add the diluted cornstarch.
11. Simmer for 10minutes more.Adjust seasoning.
    
12. Turn off the heat.
13. Best served as rice toppings. 
    

*you can add additional veggies here. Like carrots, young corn, cabbage. Be sure not to overcook them. Happy cooking & eating! God bless!

Why Culinarian Mom?

Hello! This will be my very first post for my first ever blog on blogger. So I was really deciding what my topic will be. Should I post a recipe right away? But I ended up writing this one....why did I choose "The Culinarian Mom" as the name/title of my blog?  Honestly, my first four choices where already being used by other bloggers. Then I typed "the culinarian mom", alas it was available!

Culinarian, is from the root word culinary. According to merriam-webster dictionary online culinarian is a chef & cook. Definitely I am a cook, a home cook which I have been doing from the day i got married. And you can call me a chef (a beginner one, that is) but not because I studied in a culinary school. Last year (since I was  a homemaker for 9years then I felt burnt out, bored and I was looking for some way or any activity that I can release the tension that I have & relax) I decided to enroll in a culinary school near our town. Actually it has been my dream to study in such institutions or the like ever since I got married, time & priorities didn't allow me the previous years because my kids then were still very young. It was only last year that I decided to study. According to Wikipedia, a chef is the one who cooks professionally. You can look it up there and see that there is an expounded meaning of the word chef in there. And according to one of the books that we used in culinary school "Bases Des Artes Culinaires"  culinary arts education + years of kitchen experiences = chef profession. So definitely i'm a culinarian mom! Lol! A home cook for 10 years & a beginner chef... :)

 What can you expect from my blog? From the name itself, you  can expect food, recipes, family life, kids and the like. So I hope you will enjoy my blog & continue to read it! thanks and God bless! :-)