Mongolian Barbecue

Mongolian barbecue is the interactive dinner-party showpiece that turned Asian-American restaurants into entertainment. The setup is the dish: thinly sliced lamb (or beef) and stacks of fresh vegetables on platters, a hot tabletop griddle in the center, and a sauce of soy, rice wine, star anise, ginger, and garlic. Guests grab their proteins and vegetables, drop them on the hot oiled surface, ladle on sauce, and cook to their liking with chopsticks.

The sauce is the engine. Soy sauce and water simmer with whole peppercorns, star anise, and garlic to extract their oils, then get strained and finished with rice wine, sugar, fresh ginger, and chopped scallions and cilantro. The finished sauce is salty, spiced, and fragrant in equal measure.

This takes setup but very little active cooking. Get the meat and vegetables prepped, build the sauce ahead, and let your guests do the work.

Chef Tips

• Slice the meat partially frozen for clean, paper-thin slices. Fully thawed meat tears and gives uneven thickness.
• Cut everything across the grain. With or against grain matters less for thin pieces, but cross-grain stays tender on the high heat.
• Don’t double-dip. Once raw meat hits a guest’s portion of sauce, that sauce shouldn’t be tasted from the communal pot.
• Refresh the sauce halfway through dinner. Add the reserved scallions and cilantro for renewed brightness.

Variations

• Use sliced chicken breast or shrimp for a milder, faster-cooking version.
• Add Chinese broccoli, snow peas, or sliced shiitake mushrooms to the vegetable platter.
• Serve over steamed rice or in lettuce wraps for variety in the same meal.