Stew Meat Asian Lettuce Wraps

Ingredients:

1. 1 package of Beef Stew Meat. I used 1# for 4 of us.
2. 5 cloves of fresh Garlic-crushed
3. 2" of fresh ginger peeled and cut into pieces
4. 1-1/2" of green onion cut thinly on a bias (diagonally)
5. 3" of cilantro stems, leaves roughly chopped
6. 2 Star Anise
7. 1 cup of beef stock
8. 4 T honey
9. 1/2 cup Soy Sauce (I used Tamari which is a gluten-free soy sauce.  FYI-soy actually does NOT contain gluten but often gets contaminated during processing, so if you need gluten-free use Tamari soy sauce).
10. 1/4 cup Rice Wine Vinegar
11. 1 hot chili. Fresh or dried it doesn't matter, I used 1 Serrano Chili sliced in half.  1-2 Arbol Chilies are good or if you really want HEAT, use a Thai Chili(es). They are about 10x hotter than a jalapeno.
12. 1 head of Butter or Boston or Bibb lettuce.
13. Sesame Oil (to coat)
14. fresh Limes wedged
15. fresh radishes thinly sliced
16. 1 fresh Red Pepper julienned
17. Lemongrass cut in half and break spine with back of knife
18. Sesame Seeds (toasted)
19. Kosher Salt
20. Black Pepper
21. Cornstarch (for thickening)
22. 
    

What to do:

1. Rinse stew meat under cold water and dry thoroughly with paper towel.
2. Rinse all vegetables in cold water and cut as needed.
3. Bring a saute pan to its smoke point.
4. Toss stew meat in bowl with sesame oil, salt and pepper and place in saute to brown.
5. Place browned meat in crock pot with garlic, ginger, cilantro stems, star anise, beef stock, chili(s), honey, soy sauce, vinegar and lemongrass.
6. Cook on low or high until tender.
7. Remove meat from pot and strain liquid.
8. Pour liquid into sauce pot and bring to boil.
9. In a separate bowl mix cornstarch with cold water in about a 2:1 ratio.
10. Slowly add "slurry" to boiling jus while whisking until lightly thickened.

Plating:

1. Plate up lettuce leaves and top with meat, radishes, green onion slices, red peppers, sauce and toasted sesame seeds!
2. 
   

Enjoy! Happy Eating!

--Chef JB