Grandpa Gotta Cook—Mongolian Grill

The Most Ambitious Meal Yet

Believe me, when it comes to cooking, the last thing I want to do is get ambitious. However, sometimes the desire for a certain meal gets the better of me and the next thing I know, I'm in the middle of a disaster in the making with too many moving parts.

Such was the case last Saturday, when it was once again my turn to cook.

That morning, a family member offered the fact that we hadn't eaten chicken all week. Meaning, I might want to do something with chicken. Yeah, right. I like chicken, I've just never cooked it, especially cutting up a whole chicken to do it. I felt like that might be a little over my head, but it got me thinking about what I should prepare.

Especially when I went looking in the freezer for meat options. Not only did I find the whole chickens, but I found packages of chicken legs. I also came across a large slab of steak and some chunks of pork. That really got my brain going. Why not combine the three meats and add other ingredients that would be reminiscent of my favorite combination at Mongolian Grill.

The Birthplace Of An Idea

I'm not sure if each Mongolian Grill is the same, but the one we had (before it shut down) was a buffet style. They provided a rather smallish bowl for you to try to pack in and up as much food in it as you could. Meats, vegetables, noodles, sauces, etc. They also provided rice.

Once you had your meal bowl ready, you took it back to put on the huge round grills so you could watch the cooks prepare it.

It had been years since I'd eaten at Mongolian Grill, but the meals were so memorable that I could still taste the delicious combinations of food. Truly a gastronomical delight. I'm making myself salivate even as I write this.

The Problem

While I had a six burner grill, there just wasn't going to be enough room on it to conveniently cook everything at once. That either meant cooking part of it inside (which I wanted to avoid because it was hot and because of the additional mess), or I could stagger things. The problem with that, of course, would be part of the meal would be cold before the rest of it was done.

I decided to go for option number two anyway, because that's just the kind of guy I am.

I started with preparing the vegetables. I sliced up tomatoes, bell peppers, water chestnuts and mushrooms. I then cut up some of the steak before deciding just to try it later to see if it cut faster. The pork was already cut up and I just threw the chicken legs on as is.

The meat went first. I knew the chicken from previous attempts would take the longest, so I just left those on as I traded out ingredients. Once the meat was done, I put on the tomatoes, bell peppers and mushrooms, knowing they would all be eaten by everyone. Which meant when they were done, I could just throw them all together in the same bowl.

Next came water chestnuts, bean sprouts, and spinach and some pre-wedged carrots that didn't look appetizing to me at all, but my youngest son really wanted them. Apparently, they were a part of his favorite Mongolian grill meal. The chicken stayed on throughout most of this.

Everything grilled up pretty well, except for a couple of the spinach leaves, that decided to burn rather than cook down.

The last thing to go on the grill was some pineapple.

In the meantime, I had my son whip up some rice in the cooker and fry up some Yakisoba noodles, since he was the one who wanted them. With just one pan briefly going, it didn't really affect the temperature inside.

Finally, all the ingredients were ready for mixing and matching. The rice was first to go on the plate first, meat next and then the rest of the fixings, which I threw on soy sauce and watered down plum sauce.

In all, from start to actual eat time, it took over two hours.

The Verdict

The Soy Sauce was a small mistake, since I don't normally put any of that on, but the rest was UH-MAY-ZING. I was instantly catapulted back to those savory meals I used to enjoy, mainly with my boys. We use to have fun trying to see who could get the most food into the bowl, and then who could finish their meal. Good times. Good times.

_{All images by Glen Anthony Albrethsen}

As for the rest of the crew, my son said I outdid myself. Because it was after 7:30 pm before we ate, the daugther-in-law was too hungry to say anything but eat, but she downed a heaping plate of what she wanted and said she would have to go back for seconds to know if she liked it or not. That's usually a good sign. My wife said it was good, but some of the meat was too dry.

Which was true. The steak I cut up ahead of time got overcooked and dried out. I should have just cut the steak up into fourths for faster grilling and then cut up into smaller pieces later.

Will I Try Again?

Yes, but not for a while. I need to recuperate first, and rethink how to do it. Next time, I will probably cook all the meat, and then individually cook each person's meal, because I think it would have turned out even better. Plus, I need to add some ginger and garlic, too.

So, I'm calling it a success. With the luck of the draw, I'm up again, for tomorrow night's meal. We'll see how that goes.

About This Post

The Grandpa Gotta Cook/Eat series is published on Friday now in conjunction with the Food Fight Friday crew. You can find all of each week's posts under the #fff tag. Just include the tag if you'd like to participate, and of course, post before Friday is over. Anything that has to do with food—cooking, eating, reviewing, etc.—is fair game.