Stir fry.. for the win!

It took me a while to realize and, I guess, admit that the standard (American) Chinese fare of Beef with Broccoli is, in fact, a stir fry dish. I always just thought of it as Beef with Broccoli.. ya know, the dish.. and that stir fries as a trend (as an artistic movement?) happened way later.

Imagine my befuddlement.

Anyway, Beef with Broccoli is a classic and really easy to do stir fry dish. It’s probably the main reason I ever even buy broccoli and it’s a great excuse to get some vegetables on your plate. Its colors and textures are a great complement to the oh-my-god-it-really-is-what’s-for-dinner beef that plays center stage in this dish. And did I mention that it’s easy? Because, yah, it totally is.

Observe:

And here are our vegetable cast of characters: broccoli, onions and carrots. Scallions, bamboo shoots and water chestnuts are optional, sure, but I like to add them for the sake of variety not only in flavors but in textures as well. Another nice-to-have would be baby corn if you got ‘em. But if you’re not so daring, you’re solid just sticking to the first three vegetables.

And here we have some of the more.. saucier.. ingredients: soy sauce, oyster sauce, black pepper and corn starch. If you don’t have oyster sauce, you can always just throw in about a tablespoon of sugar to kinda sorta make up for the lack.

And then there’s the meat. Here we have about a pound and a half of, I think, London broil beef.

Er, that is to say, I’m sure it’s beef. No doubt about that. I’m just not sure if it’s London broil. (I forget.) To me, it doesn’t matter all that much what cut of beef you go with since it’s going to get all cut up anyway. Go with what you like.

Me, I usually just go with what’s on sale since, I’m cheap like dat.

After cutting up the meat into strips, combine it with the soy sauce and oyster sauce. Pepper as much as you want to. Mix the whole mess (by hand, preferably) and set aside. Ideally, you should allow this to marinate for about an hour but usually letting it sit while you prepare the other parts of this dish is adequate. Your mileage may vary, of course.

So, while that’s all sitting, let’s slice up some carrots. Do note how thin these are sliced. For stir fries, you generally want your hard vegetables to be thin in order to speed up the cooking time.

For the broccoli, chopping them up so that they resemble little trees works. Remove plenty of their stalks, sure, but don’t, ya know, run the whole thing through a wood chipper. These guys don’t need to be obliterated when you’re cutting them up since broccoli is alright being a little on the underdone side. Their crunch is what is often so appealing and, besides, they get steamed later.

When it comes to the onions, we want big chunks. I slice them in half along the poles and then chop those up into thirds. I suppose technically I cut them into sixths.. but that would be math.

These scallions I sliced using adamantium claws I picked up while being a test subject in a super secret military experiment in Canada one time ..but I suppose you can use a knife.

Whatever.

Ah, such pretty colors.

Now, after the meat has sat around for however long you want it to sit for, you’ll want to get some hot oil going in a large fry pan or, hey, a wok. (But since I’m not covering the tenets of wok use, you should probably use a fry pan if you want to follow these directions.)

Anyway, when things get steamy, add your meat in and let it start cooking. Be careful, though, and try to get as little extra marinade as possible to accompany the meat during the transfer. That said, you may want to use a fork and transfer the meat bit by bit rather than just up-ending the bowl.

Also, don’t throw out the contents of this bowl; you’ll be needing the leftover marinade in a little bit.

So, here’s the thing: after some time, your marinated meat will start to, essentially, bleed its juices as well as the marinade itself. This is a bad thing. Why? Because the beef will start boiling in all that liquid instead of frying or browning. Boiled is not the texture we’re going for here, folks. So let’s not boil.

To rectify the situation, you’re going to have to return this liquid back into the marinating bowl. You may have to drain the pan a couple times as the meat continues to cook.

A drier pan of meat will cook way more as intended. If you’re like me, you’ll probably see this as a good time to sprinkle some more ground black pepper on the beef. There’s nothing quite like the aroma of peppered meat browning, after all.

You should probably use this as an opportunity to turn the meat over if you haven’t already.

When the meat is sufficiently browned, add in the carrots and stir fry them for a fair bit.

After the carrots begin to soften, add in the onions and, again, stir fy a fair bit. Try to separate the onion pieces as you mix the whole lot.

The rest of the optional ingredients can then be added when the onions begin to cook.

Now remember that bowl with the marinade? We’re going to be adding some corn starch to it to thicken it up. Our marinade is going to be the sauce for the stir fry. (Madness, I know.) Mix thoroughly and make sure there are no clumps of corn starch in the sauce.

Throw this now thickened marinade into the pan and mix the whole lot again.

If it wasn’t smelling tasty already, it should now. And if it doesn’t now, you must have a cold or something.

And now we introduce the broccoli. Stir fry this a bit to get it cooking a little as well as to get it coated with the sauce that’s already in the mixture.

Now, depending on how much moisture is in the pan after the incorporation of the sauce, you may want to add about a 1/4 cup of water to the pan. Why? Because we’re going to steam these bad boys for a little bit.

Hey, look! My pan is doing an impersonation of a wok! Er, yah. My wok committed seppukku months ago. All that’s left is the cover. And given that my pan’s cover ran off with a carnie at some point, it’ll have to do.

In any case, turn up the heat and cover the pan for about two minutes, allowing the broccoli to steam.

Now check out how brilliantly green the little trees are now. And speaking of green, throw in those scallions that we almost forgot about. And guess what we’re going to do now. That’s right: stir fry some more.

When it’s all well and done, serve the dish with rice. Be careful not to overcook this since overcooked veggies in a stir fry is really unattractive (despite the taste not being terribly affected).

Beef with Broccoli

what you’ll need

• 1-1.5 lb of beef steak
• 2-3 broccoli crowns
• 3-4 medium sized carrots
• 1 onion
• 2-3 scallions
• 1 small can of bamboo shoots (optional)
• 1 small can of water chestnuts (optional)
• 1/2 c soy sauce
• 1/4 c oyster sauce
• ground black pepper
• 1-1.5 T corn starch
• vegetable oil
• water

what to do

1. Cut up meat into thin slices. Place in a bowl with soy sauce and oyster sauce. Add ground black pepper, starting off with about 2 tablespoons and upping that quantity should you desire more kick to the dish. Mix all ingredients and set aside to marinate.
2. As meat is marinating, chop up the vegetables. Be sure to slice up the carrots thinly as they are the hardest vegetable of the lot and their doneness (along with the meat) will often determine when the dish’s preparation is complete. Chop up onion into large enough chunks so that they don’t become integrated and lost in the sauce over time. Broccoli should be nice bite-sized trees and scallions should be large chunks as well.
3. In a large pan, heat up just enough oil to cover the surface of the pan. Over medium-to-high head, add the marinated beef. Try to drain as much of the meat of excess liquid before adding it to the pan.
4. Allow the meat to brown, flipping as needed. Over time, the meat will essentially bleed or otherwise sweat off natural juices as well as the marinade. Drain the pan of this excess liquid back into the marinade bowl. You may need to do this a couple times.
5. Now that the pan is drier, allow the meat to brown some more, possibly taking this time as an opportunity to pepper it some more.
6. Mix in carrots, stir fry a bit and allow to cook for a couple minutes.
7. Add in onions, mix and then allow the pan to cook for a minute, stir frying a bit as well. When the onions just begin to soften, throw in the bamboo shoots and water chestnuts (if you have them). Stir.
8. While that’s cooking, add a tablespoon of corn starch with the marinade and mix well. Should that produce a sauce that’s a little too thin, add another half tablespoon of corn starch.
9. Pour the now thickened marinade back into the pan and stir so that the sauce covers everything evenly. If you feel that there isn’t quite enough of the sauce to go around, add a couple more tablespoons of oyster sauce to the pan.
10. Add broccoli to the pan as well as about a 1/4 cup of water. Cover and allow to steam for a couple of minutes.
11. When the broccoli is a deeper green color, add scallions and stir fry everything. Scallions won’t take long to cook.
12. Serve with white rice and enjoy.