Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Beef with broccoli

It's not often that you see sirloin on sale for $2 a pound, so I had to take advantage of it. Sirloin is pretty tender as is, which means it's great for short and fast cooking--like stir-frying.

Recipe from Epicurious.

Ingredients: 1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
3/4 pound sirloin, sliced against the grain 1/8 inch thick
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
10 ounces frozen broccoli florets, thawed
3 garlic cloves, chopped
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1/3 cup water


Ok, so I missed a bunch of pictures. Cut the sirloin as thin as you can (it's much easier to do this if you partially freeze the meat by throwing it into the freezer for about 30 minutes, since it'll hold its shape better while you're cutting it), then coat with cornstarch and add seasonings and stuff. And stuff.

Also, prep the broccoli and garlic.


DSC_1551-sirloincooking
Get the pan hot (like medium-high on the stove), and throw in the sliced sirloin. Let it sit for a bit so that you get that nice brown crust.

DSC_1555-broccoli
Once the sirloin is cooked, set it aside, add some more oil, then add the broccoli and garlic. Stir constantly, because a hot pan + garlic = burnt garlic, and burnt garlic = bad news. (so hot pan + garlic = bad news by transitivity?)

DSC_1558-sauce
After about 2 minutes, add the sirloin back in, add the water and soy sauce to deglaze, scrape off all the good bits off the bottom of the pan, and let the liquids reduce to get a good sauce going.

Rather than water, I'm sure you could use something else. Vinegar? Shaohsing wine?

DSC_1559-beefbroccoliplated
Serve over white rice.

6 comments:

  1. no oyster sauce? your everyday pan is like almost a wok. you do the killer kenichi flip?

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  2. Of course I do.

    My "asian ingredient" pantry is severely lacking, so I was limited to just soy sauce--but it was still good.

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  3. actually im thinking about making some nuoc cham cause i sorta have a craving for it. dunno what to eat with it though. xuong?

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  4. What if you just waited a bit before putting the garlic in? That way you can let the broccoli cook without worrying about the garlic as much.

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  5. That's a good idea, and I suggest doing that instead of what I posted.

    Alternatively, I've also seen recipes where you cook the garlic first, then take the garlic out. Then cook your meat/broccoli in the resultant garlic-infused oil.

    Then add the garlic back in near the end.

    ReplyDelete