CHINESE FAKE-OUT

I LOVE CHINESE FOOD! Take me to a Chinese restaurant and I am in heaven; and sadly a msg/gluten headache awaits... It happens almost instantly, a few bites and my hands are hot, swollen and beet red. Soon my neck and face follow suit. By the time I am having my last sip of green tea, probably the healthiest item of the meal, and savoring my last nibble of almond cookie, the headache moves in. Despite all of the very noticeable reactions my body was having to all of that delicious food, I kept going back... A friend and I refered to Crab Rangoon as our Chinese Crack. After a rather stressful week at work, I had to fight hard not to stop and order some take-out this past Friday. I think I passed at least 5 Chinese restaurants on the way home! I made it to the drive-way and let out a sigh of relief! I had made it home! But I still had an insatiable craving for Chinese, like REAL Chinese... Stir-Fry wasn't gonna cut it... If I HAD stopped for take-out I would have attempted to order something I considered a "safer" choice, like Moo-shoo pork or Egg Foo Young... Hmm... Egg Foo Young... That cant be too hard! Chinese omelet covered in delicious gravy goodness! And so I set to work. 

Egg Foo Young

Patties:

• 1/2 green cabbage thinly sliced
• 1/2 small onion sliced
• 1/2 red bell and 1/2 green bell pepper sliced
• 6 stalks of asparagus chopped into bite size pieces
• 1 cup broccoli florets
• 1 cup sliced mushrooms
• 3 large eggs
• 8oz of your choice of protein, I used a Ny Strip steak, its what I had on hand
• 1 tbs grated ginger
•  3tbs sesame oil
• 1/4 c coconut oil
• 1/8 c fish sauce
• 2 cloves garlic smashed and chopped
• black pepper
• 2 tbs liquid aminos or soy sauce to taste... liquid aminos is soy free and ultra low carb tastes just like soy sauce!

Gravy:

Pan "drippings"

1 c beef broth

1-2 tsp of xanthan gum, depending in amount of liquid you have, start with one tsp and add to desired consistency

black pepper to taste... I LOVE FRESH GROUND PEPPER!

Directions:

1. Prep all veggies and dice protein
2. Heat the 1/2 of the coconut oil and the sesame oil in a large frying pan or wok
3. Add steak, 1 clove of garlic and black pepper to taste and cook to a med rare, approx 2 mins for very thinly sliced beef. Remove beef and set aside
4. Add cabbage and onions and saute for about 3-5 mins COVERED you want to slightly steam, not only to make the cabbage more tender but to release some juices for the gravy
5. Add remaining veggies, spices and sauces. Cook until veggies are very tender.
6. Remove veggies, straining off any liquid. Do so by actually squeezing out any moisture you can into a small sauce pan. You want as much liquid and drippings as you can get. This is for flavor, but also you don't want too much moisture in your patties. Add reserved beef to the veggies, let cool slightly.
7. Scramble the eggs and mix into cooled veggie/beef mixture.
8. Heat a non-stick frying pan and coat with coconut oil
9. Laddle heaping spoonfuls of the veggie/beef mixture in pan
10. Let cook about 5mins a side or until the egg is cooked through and the patties are brown.
11. For the gravy, heat the pan drippings you collected from the veggies and 1 cup of beef broth in a small sauce pan. Once boiling turn heat to low and wisk in Xanthan gum powder to desired thickness. Easy does it with Xanthan gum, this stuff thickens very quickly! Serve on top of patties! 

This made 6 large patties. I ate 3 for dinner and the next morning I reheated the others in frying pan and topped with 2 over easy eggs... Sooo good!!!!