Beef and Vegetable Rolls

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Serves 4.

Ingredients

375 g/12 oz lean beef, in thin slices
2 carrots
3 spring onions (scallions)
125 g/4 oz green beans
cornflour (cornstarch)
1 piece pickled radish (takuan)
1-2 tablespoons vegetable oil
iced water

Sauce
2 tablespoons sake or mirin
3 tablespoons Japanese soy sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
3 tablespoons water

Directions

Ask the butcher to cut the beef into thin slices, and if they are not
very thin, take them home and pound them lightly with a meat mallet on
a wooden board until no more than 6 mm (1/4 in) thick. Then cut them
into strips about 5 cm (2 in) wide.

Peel carrots and trim into sticks the same length as the green beans -
about 15 cm (6 in) long and 6 mm (1/4 in) square. Trim spring onions to
the same length. Top and tail the beans, and cut the pickled radish
into narrow strips.

Bring a pan of water to the boil, add the carrots and boil for about 4
minutes or until almost tender. Lift out. Add the beans. Cook uncovered
for about 3 minutes, drain and drop into iced water to stop cooking.

Sift a little cornflour over each strip of beef, and place a bundle
consisting of 2 carrot sticks, 2 or 3 beans, a couple of lengths of
spring onion and pickled radish on each of the beef strips. Roll up,
starting at one end of the vegetables and completely enclosing them in
the beef. Fasten with a wooden toothpick. Dust outside of rolls lightly
with cornflour.

Heat a large, heavy frypan with oil and brown the beef rolls on all
sides, turning them over with tongs. Combine ingredients for sauce and
add to the pan. Simmer for about 5 minutes until they are evenly
coloured and flavoured with the sauce. Turn off heat and allow to cool
slightly before cutting crossways into 5 cm (2 in) slices.

Serve with steamed rice.

Recipe excerpted from Encyclopedia of Asian Food by Charmaine Solomon (Periplus Editions, 1998)