Stir-fried Wagyu Beef with Onions

We love to eat Wagyu beef . It is said to be one of the best breeds around the world. The other two are Black Angus/Angus from US and Chianina from Italy. Wagyu is graded from 1 to 12, it offers a range of marbling, flavours and tenderness.

My craving for Wagyu beef worsened after watching Korean TV series - SikGaek (食客) , literally means Foodie. In this series, Sung Chan, the main actor, ate raw beef to get its real taste and imagined how it would taste like when it was cooked. He went to extra miles to get food cooked perfectly and we were amused by his creativity in turning normal food into real good food. He could cook anything from fine dining Korean food, emperor food, to simple ones such as fried anchovies and kim chi, you name it. It was such a joy watching him cook as well as tasting the food visually. But we knew we should not be just sitting and watching him over a long time because it became a torture by just looking at him cooking rather we did it ourselves.


For more info, you can also click here (English) or here (Chinese).

Inspired, we did not wait long till Saturday to go to Liang Court, Meidi-ya for Wagyu beef, and to learn to cook like him. After buying, I was a bit unsure since I was a newbie for cooking Wagyu, how to go about cooking it was a good question in my mind, thus, I searched online for info. It seemed that everyone recommended it to be cooked as quickly as possible due to its marbling, less than 2 mins per side. Hmm....I was not thinking about steak recipe though.

The aroma & flavour of my Mum's cooking were still lingering in the air then, it was like yesterday that she just cooked for us a plate of stir-fried wild boar in my Kampung Titi (Yes, we eat wild boar and deer, I don't want to be pretentious to say that I just eat poultry, beef and seafood). Just some spring onions, sliced ginger, onions & wine, did wonders. So, I prefer cooking her way. This is the simplest way to enjoy a good piece of meat like this, simply let its natural flavour shine.

Well, without much help online, I adopted my Mum's way of cooking.

Method

1. Season beef with some salt and pepper.


2. Oil the pan, fry some sliced onions and ginger till fragrant, slightly brown and transparent, take out.


3. Heat pan (very hot), fry and toss the beef still they are slightly charred on the outside, but retain juiciness inside, about 30 seconds.


4. Add in spring onions and item (2), toss a bit with a dash of wine, 30 seconds .


5. Done.

Kobe Beef vs Wagyu beef: What is this, anyway?

Kobe Beef is a legendary delicacy of Japan, a type of beef that is so well marbled that it goes right off the charts for Prime grading in any other country. The meat ends up looking like it has been left out in the snow because of the intensiveness of the white fat marbling, rivals foie gras for richness and caloric content, and costs an obscene amount, often $300 a pound or more for the real thing in Japan. Kobe beef comes from a breed of cattle called Wagyu. In order to earn the designation of "Kobe Beef", the Wagyu beef must come from Kobe, Japan, and meet rigid production standards imposed in that prefecture.

Due to land scarcity in Japan, the beef production houses in Kobe have been contracting out to other producers to custom raise their cattle for them. Most specifically, in the US and Australia.

I bought this piece of beef, grade 7 from Meidi-ya for $31.60. After eating the beef, I think it is worth every cent.

Let's tuck in. Together with wagyu beef, we had radish kim chi and miso soup to go with. Simply delicious! Now, you can see that we are really into Korean food now. ;)