It's called Wok Hei in Cantonese & it's actually a cooking technique & not
an ingredient, it's a bit like setting fire to your food in the wok. I'm
sure you've seen it on TV or pictures in Asia where the wok + food is
alight. You don't have to actually do that but a big fire/flame is vital to
getting that smokey taste in your stirfry. Just let your wok or fry pan sit
on the fire for quite awhile w/o any oil until it is smoking(best not use a
Tefal or anything with a non-stick coating, a seasoned wok or a old blacken
fry pan is best), have all your ingredients prepared & ready in bowls or
plates. Pour in your cooking oil, tilt & spread it around your very hot
wok/fry pan to coat it & let it settle before you throw in your first
ingedients followed by the next etc. As all your ingredients are cut to
size, it's just a case of adding them in one at a time & tossing your
wok/fry pan. As you tilt & toss, you'll sometimes set fire to the wok & it's
contents. Finally add in your gravy ingredients, i'm guessing it'll be
something like cornflour+water. It's a relatively quick process, in a
take-away or restaurant situation, stirfried beef in blackbean sauce takes
about a minute to cook. At home maybe 1-2 more minutes depending on your
cooker. Best with a gas fire.

DC.


"Gregory Toomey" > wrote in message
news:41751003.SmD5GseqmB@GMT-hosting-and-pickle-farming...
> I tried the local chinese takeaway at the weekend & I'm trying to recreate
> some of the dishes.
>
> I'm fairly close (using msg & chinese five spice) with the 'beef in black
> bean sauce' & 'malaysian-style beef' but they both have a sort of 'smokey
> chinese' flavour.
>
> Any clues? I was thinking perhaps toasted Szechwan peppercorns, or even
> liquid smoke?
>
> gtoomey