Tomato Beef Noodles

Continuing onwards with "Penga works on her Chinese cooking", I decided to tackle a family favorite, tomato beef over pan-fried noodles this time.  I also had the help of Penga-Sis, who hung out at our place for the last week of her winter vacation.

To start out, I used this recipe, though other than the sauce proportions we ended up deviating quite a bit.

Here's what we used:

2.5 leftover cooked steaks, sliced thinly
1 packet (1 lb) of Chinese noodles (just picture chow mein, that's the width and color we used)
6 tbsp ketchup
6 tbsp hoisin sauce
6 tbsp chili garlic sauce
1 can of diced tomatoes
2 green bell peppers
half an onion (though I used frozen diced stuff since it was on hand)
8 roma tomatos, cubed

(makes four gigantic servings worth, with toppings leftover. Would recommend more noodles if this happens to you!)

First, we cut up the steaks! They were leftovers from the yummy New Year's dinner Dad had cooked for us the day before.

Penga-Sis set to work mixing the three sauces together.  Ketchup, hoisin and chili garlic!

Though that did not look like any tomato beef sauce we had ever seen. It's not even red! So we dumped a can of tomatoes in, and simmered it along with the sliced beef.

Meanwhile, we chopped up the bellpeppers and tomatoes to saute with the onions over the stove.  Do the peppers first and throw the tomatoes in last, otherwise they will disintegrate.

And lastly, the fun part! Noodles! After heating up a quarter cup of peanut oil in my wok, we crisped up the noodles, turning them often with long cooking chopsticks to prevent them from burning too much. (Though I admit I love the burnt parts, mmm.)

Take them out once they are crispy enough for your taste!

Then pour the veggies and sauce over the noodles and eat away!

We ate in front of a warm fire while watching the Wild China documentary on Netflix.  So cozy!

While this tomato beef noodle dish was definitely delicious, it wasn't at all like our grandmother's version, which has a much more pronounced tomato flavor.  I will have to ask for her recipe next time, though I wouldn't mind making this one again, as it was quite tasty!