Beef Stir Fry For Lunch

For lunch Sunday, I fixed Ticky and Mr. Hawthorne a nice stir fry. The wonderful thing about stir frying is that it's so very versatile. There are no strict rules about the ingredients. All you need to learn is the method or the technique. First, the most important thing is BE PREPARED. You want to have every ingredient sliced, chopped, and ready to go, within your reach. You want to heat your pan over high heat for about a minute before adding the oil. (When the pan smokes, it's ready to add the oil.) I like to use a peanut oil or a safflower oil, because these oils have a higher smoke point than other vegetable oils or olive oil. I also like to season my oil before adding in other ingredients by adding in garlic, ginger, or chilies. You want to cook your meat and vegetables quickly over high heat, so as to retain the flavor, color, and texture. You want your pieces of veggies and your pieces of meat to be uniform and bite-sized (Ever see a knife on the table in a Chinese restaurant?) so that they cook evenly. You need to know the cooking times of the different vegetables you're cooking. For example, you wouldn't want to throw in snow peas and carrots at the same time. The snow peas would be overcooked before the carrots were ready. But carrots and broccoli could go in at the same time. When you add your meat to the pan, do so evenly and do not disturb for about 20 seconds allowing the meat to sear, then stir. Do not add too much meat at one time else the meat steams and doesn't sear. Add the meat in batches. When you add in the liquid, slowly add down the side of the wok so as not to reduce the temperature. I don't mean to sound like you-know-who here, but in stir frying, really, you can use whatever you have. Now, I don't mean dirty gym socks. I don't mean that those night crawlers or eels you have in your fridge that your sons use for bait. (What? You don't have night crawlers or eels in your refrigerator?) And I don't mean the moldy bread in your cabinet either. What I mean is you can basically use whatever vegetables you have and whatever meat you have. OK ... within reason. You could add in a can of baby corn, perhaps a can of bamboo shoots or water chestnuts. You could pour in some FROZEN peas. You can use carrots, peppers, onions, squash, zucchini, broccoli, snow peas, asparagus, green beans. You can use beef, chicken, pork, shrimp. You can stir fry whatever combination of ingredients you want. For this recipe, I'm using a homemade veal stock. But this isn't necessary. If you use beef, you could use a good quality beef stock for your sauce. If you use chicken, then use a chicken stock. If you use shrimp you could use seafood stock or chicken stock. If you use pork you could use either beef or chicken stock.

I also like to use a cornstarch slurry (2 TB cornstarch mixed with 2 TB cold water) to thicken my sauce and give a nice glaze to my stir fry. You could marinate your beef, chicken, shrimp, or pork ... or not. You could batter your chicken, shrimp, or pork ... or not. Stir frying ain't rocket science, but it is fun and delicious. Just use your imagination.

So, on to my stir fry.

Here are my ingredients: Thinly sliced filet mignon (slightly frozen)

Yellow plate contains: snow peas sliced mushrooms sliced celery onions Green plate contains: red, orange, and green chopped peppers crinkly cut carrots broccoli Small container in middle has chopped green onions. In the back I have a cup of sticky rice, tamari sauce veal stock cornstarch slurry (2 tablespoons cornstarch mixed with 2 tablespoons cold water While I started cooking, Ticky took over the photographic duties. Now, when doing stir fry (or anything else for that matter) it's very important to have all your ingredients ready and at hand.

My sticky rice is cooking in a pan at the back left. My wok is heating up. My two plates of vegetables and a cutting board of sliced garlic are ready. The veal stock and cornstarch slurry are there at the right. My sliced beef is off screen to the left. And Wosie is weady to wok.

I heated a few tablespoons of peanut oil, then added the mushrooms, cooking for a few minutes.

After the mushrooms cooked for maybe 2 minutes, I added in the carrots and the broccoli, and stir fried for another minute over high heat.

After about a minute of stir frying, I added in about 1/2 cup of water to steam the carrots and broccoli. Stir fry maybe one short minute longer, then pour into a large bowl and cover. I always taste test a piece of broccoli or carrot. You want it crunchy, not cooked through, since the veggies are going to cook more in the bowl. Plus you'll be adding everything back in at the end to heat through, so always undercook your veggies.

Next, I wiped out the wok with a paper towel, heated up 2-3 tablespoons peanut oil, and added my snow peas, peppers, and onions. Stir fry about 30 seconds, then sprinkle in 2-3 tablespoons of sugar. Cook maybe a minute and pour into the bowl.

Heat up some more oil, then add in garlic slices to season the oil and, depending on how much beef you have, add in 1/3 to 1/2 of the beef slices. Never crowd your meat.

If you add all the beef at one time, it lowers the temperature of the oil and the beef won't sear properly. So with meat, always work in batches.

I tossed the beef for about one minute. Nice action shot, Ticky. I turned the first batch of stir fried beef into the bowl with veggies, covered it, added more oil to the wok, heated the oil up, and added the rest of the beef.

Notice, my meat is still rare. For a nice sauce/glaze, I added in the veal stock and cornstarch slurry simultaneously. Ooh... forgot to tell you. I added some of the Tamari (You could use a good soy sauce.) to the pan. Less than 1/4 cup.

Add in the rest of the ingredients.

Slowly add in the rest of the veal stock down the side of the wok (You could use beef stock.), stir until nicely thickened, and remove from heat.

And here's my lovely beef stir fry.

Serve over sticky rice and sprinkle green onion slices over top.

Mr. Hawthorne always likes cashews on top of his.

Bon appetit!