Name: Lettuce-Wrapped Oyster Beef (燦豉牛肉)
Yield: Serves 2–3 as a main dish, 4–6 as part of a multicourse meal, or 8–10 as a light hors d’oeuvre.
Cuisine: Chinese
Ingredients: 1½ teaspoons cornstarch; 3–4 ounce can smoked oysters, well drained of packing oil; 1 tablespoon Chinese rice wine or quality, dry sherry; 1 tablespoon thin (regular) soy sauce; ½ pound ground top round beef; ⅓–½ cup baby lima beans or green peas, fresh or frozen; 2 tablespoons corn or peanut oil; 12–16 washed and trimmed perfect lettuce leaves, preferably romaine; 3–4 cups corn or peanut oil; ¼–½ ounce bean threads (glass noodles); pinch sugar; ½–1 tablespoon oyster sauce

Preparation info

Serves
2–3
as a main dish .

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

The Modern Art of Chinese Cooking

By Barbara Tropp

Published 1982

About

Chinese, like most other people, have a penchant for wrapping one thing inside another and then eating it. Mandarin pancakes, spring-rolls, dumplings, and lettuce-wrapped dishes such as this one are all part of the passion for wrapping. (From whence this passion stems I do not know, but that it is a matter far more interesting than mere convenience or neatness I am certain. Otherwise, a hot dog without its bun, or mu-shu pork without its pancake would not seem so sad, so deprived, an