There’s a famous chain restaurant out there that somehow provides the impossible: gluten-free Chinese food.
I know that it’s hard to believe, but it’s completely true! With soy sauce (first ingredient: wheat) serving as the base for nearly every dish, we had pretty much given up on ever eating Chinese again. But P.F. Chang’s not only has an extensive and surprising gluten-free menu, but the food is quite delicious as well! In fact, our kids loved it so much we made a recreation of their Egg Drop Soup last year.
Of course, their gluten-free menu is still riddled with seed oils and sugar though. So, while dining with Paleo Spirit and The Domestic Man, we brainstormed with Russ the idea of making these dishes even more paleo friendly in the future. And finally nine months later, we’ve organized a full round up of PF Chang’s recreations! It was your recommendations that brought about this team-effort post, thank you! At the bottom of this post, you’ll get to see our contribution: Mongolian Beef!
We asked many people to contribute to our round up in hopes that some very special dishes would come out of this project. We were certainly not disappointed! Man, this paleo community delivers! If we’ve missed your favorite dish, comment and petition your favorite blogger to give it a shot!
Although quite of our friends wanted to join-forces to recreate the entire menu, many of them just weren’t able to given the time constraints and competing commitments. However, if you know of more recipes we should list already or see more posted in the future, we’d love to link up – so let us know! If you want to link up, just use the awesome graphic created by the ever talented Alex Boake to your post with a link to this post and we’ll add you to this epic round-up!
Alex from Alex Boake Illustraion & Comics shares Lemon Chicken!
Joshua from Slim Palate makes Shrimp with Garlic Sauce!
Brent and Heather from Virginia is for Hunter Gathers serve up Ginger Chicken with Broccoli!
Michele from Nom Nom Paleo makes some real tasty Asian Cauliflower Fried Rice
Russ from The Domestic Man managed to make the infamous Chicken Lettuce Wraps
Vanessa from Healthy Living How To dishes something you can’t even get gluten-free at the restaurant: Kung Pao Chicken
Sean from FreeRange Human makes delicious Mu Shu Pork with Homemade Hoisin Sauce
Simone for Zen Belly makes a unique and flavorful Pad Thai!
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And now for our contribution: the sweet dish we always order when we go, Mongolian Beef!
For those who are interested, I used the secret ingredient that also makes the Asian Short Ribs from Beyond Bacon absolutely irresistible in this recipe as well!
Mongolian Beef
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 lbs. sirloin, flank steak or other stir frying beef, cut into 1/2" by 1" slices
- 1/4 C tapioca flour or arrowroot powder
- 1 C lard for frying plus 3 TBSP lard for sauteing (or coconut oil, but will change the flavor)
- 2 tsp garlic, minced
- 1 tsp fresh ginger, minced
- 1/2 C coconut aminos
- 1/4 C water
- 1/4 C molasses
- 1/4 C palm sugar
- 1/2 C green onions, cut into 1-2" pieces
Instructions
- * Add flour to a bowl and lightly dredge each slice of beef, tapping off extra flour. Do not over bread, this should be just a light dusting, which helps thicken the sauce later. Set aside.
- In a large skillet, melt 1 cup of lard over medium high heat.
- Cook beef in batches until browned on both sides, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer to towel lined plate.
- In a separate pan, heat 3 tablespoons of lard over medium heat until melted and hot. Add garlic and ginger and saute for 90 seconds.
- Pour in coconut aminos and water and simmer for 3 minutes.
- Stir in molasses and palm sugar until dissolved. Continue to simmer for another 5 minutes until sauce is thickened.
- * Add cooked beef and onions and stir to coat. Continue to cook for 6 minutes, stirring frequently.
- Serve over cauliflower rice as part of a large paleo Chinese food feast!
Notes
* Because of the high heat with sugar we don't recommend a lot of activity for kids with cooking; however, there's a lot of prep they'd be perfect to help with! Our kids happily ate this (leaving the green onions for Matt & I) several times as we tested this recipe, so next Friday night avoid take out and eat Asian with the whole family at home instead!
http://realeverything.com/paleo-p-f-changs-recipe-recreation-round-up/
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We hope you enjoyed this round-up of completely paleo-friendly Chinese dishes, inspired by P.F. Chang’s favorites! If you make them, please let the authors know what you think. Perhaps we can convince our friends to take on more restaurant favorites a couple of times a year. What do you want to see?
