On Tuesday, October 7, 2014 4:03:09 PM UTC+10, Travis McGee wrote:
> On 10/7/2014 1:51 AM, Timo wrote:
> > On Tuesday, October 7, 2014 2:32:23 PM UTC+10, Travis McGee wrote:
> >> I made Mongolian beef tonight, and it came out great. I have several
> >> Chinese cookbooks, but none of them had a recipe for this dish, I
> >> suspect because it's "American Chinese", and not an "authentic" recipe..
> >
> > A friend of mine was in a group hosting some visitors from Mongolia. They took them out for dinner, to a Chinese restaurant. The visitors saw "Mongolian lamb" on the menu, and one ordered it, just to see what it was. When it came, "Ah! This is what we call 'Cantonese lamb'."
> >
> Do you know what was in it? Here in the USA "Mongolian Beef" usually
> means beef, stir-fried with a lot of onion, and I mean a LOT of onion,
> with a sweet, soy flavored sauce. I usually like it from a restaurant,
> but this was the first time that I've made it myself.

Usually white/yellow onion, somtetimes green onion as well, and some other green vegetable (usually green capsicum). Lamb, garlic/ginger/Hoisin sauce.

> This recipe differed from the dishes I've had from restaurants in that
> it calls only for green onions, hardly cooked at all; the restaurant
> versions that I've had usually have a lot of yellow onion, cooked until
> fairly soft. Regardless, they are all good.

I think our Mongolian lamb is the same, with lamb substituted for beef (or vice versa).

Sometimes carrots and/or red capsicum. Sometimes no chilli.

The Chinese version of Mongolian lamb (or beef) is a Sinicised version of a Xinjiang dish (beef instead of lamb is one of the changes), and the American (and Australian) versions are Westernised versions of the Chinese version (sweet Hoisin sauce, less onion).

Lamb, onions, cumin, garlic, ginger, chilli, soy sauce. Maybe rice wine. Some starch (potato) and water if you want it saucier. Sichuan pepper is common.

Classic Uighur treatment of the ingredients might be to skewer and grill, and eat in flatbread, rather than fry in wok + eat with rice/noodles.