Peppered Beef Stir-fry

I made this for the Cooks Club Challenge over on Taste. This month it has been recipes from the 30 Minute Meals collection. There is still some time left in the month so if you are an Aussie pop on over, make a recipe and post a photo. This month the prize is a copy of the Sydney Seafood School cookbook by Roberta Muir. I am not really big on seafood but I am sure there is someone out there that would love the book.

I am going to admit to being a food magazine snob. When I search for a recipe on Taste I tend to bypass recipes from Super Food Ideas. I have found that so many of them call for a jar of this and/or a packet of that. Some of them really aren't recipes at all as far as I am concerned just combining pre-prepared items. I have found the occasional good one and this Peppered Beef Stir-fry is one of them. I actually had some char siu sauce in the fridge, who know how long it had been there, so it was definitely time to use it up. I would suggest that 1/3 cup is too much though. I think that 1/4 cup would be plenty. I also didn't put the left over marinade in as there was enough still on the meat. I used snow peas, asparagus and spinach for the vegetables and served with noodles. I really enjoyed this. The pepper came through nicely even with the strong flavours from the char siu sauce and soy sauce. It was nice and quick for a mid-week meal. I would definitely make it again. 

Soy & Maple Beef with rice

I subscribed to the Australian Healthy Food Guide a while ago. It is a nice little magazine with some great tips and tricks in it. There is also plenty of recipes however I will admit that until this issue I hadn't made any of the recipes. In fact I didn't even make the recipe that was in the magazine. What I made was based on the recipe in the magazine but the balance of flavours just didn't seem to be right to me and I changed some of the vegetables in it. If I made it again I would add some chilli to it as well as it needed some zing.

Soy & Maple Beef 

500 g beef, very thinly sliced 

1/4 c maple syrup

1 tbsp kecap manis 

1 tbsp grated ginger

2 cloves garlic, crushed 

2  tbsp oil

1 red onion, cut into wedges 

1 red capsicum, roughly chopped (I didn't have one but would add it in) 

1 carrot, finely sliced (I used a mandolin) 

2 sticks celery, finely sliced

small head broccoli cut into florets

handful snow peas, trimmed and halved

Brown rice to serve

Combine maple syrup, kecap manis, ginger and garlic in a bowl. Add beef and leave to marinate for an hour. 

Heat half the oil in a wok. Fry beef in batches and then set aside. 

To the wok add the remaining oil then add onion and cook until starting to soften add capsicum, carrot, celery and broccoli and stir fry for a few minutes. Return beef to the pan with the snow peas and a bit of the leftover marinade. Cook to heat through. Serve with rice. 

August 2003 - Beef Stir-fry with Rice Noodles

Well, I haven't managed to make much of a start on posting yet. I have gotten quite a bit of the actual cooking done though. I guess that it is a start. Something I noticed looking through this month's magazines was that on all but two of the covers are some very delicious looking desserts. The Malted chocolate pudding with Mars bar custard looks incredible. There were two reasons that I didn't make it the first being that I didn't have everything needed for the recipe and and second, I really don't need any desserts at the moment. 

The first recipe that I actually considered making was Jill Dupleix's Hokk Bol (Chinese pork noodles). Jill describes it as an Asian version of spaghetti bolognese. I was intrigued by it but at the same time I wasn't convinced that I would actually like it. There were only two things that I didn't have to make it, hoisin sauce (which I normally have) and Shaohsing rice wine, which I know in small quantities can be substituted with sherry. In the end I just decided to not to take the chance with the lovely pork mince I have in the freezer. 

I decided to make something quick one night after work and Valli Little's Beef stir-fry with rice noodles was just the thing.  I didn't have a leek, so just used onion. I had no tamari, so just used light soy sauce and used sherry in place of the shaohsing. The end result was a but gluggy, perhaps I didn't have the heat high enough when cooking. It was also quite salty, water may have been a better option than stock. It was nice though and was very quick and easy to make from store foods. 

 

July 2007 - Thai Pork Stir-fry

I started this post a couple of days ago and haven't managed to get back to it until now. I am sitting here waiting for the electrician to turn up. He was supposed to be here an hour ago but he had an emergency call so will hopefully be here soon. I am hoping that I will not end up being too late for work. I have already called work to let them know I might be. I guess that I will have to work late to make up the time, although I already have to make up some time from yesterday when I had to do to a medical appointment. Wonderful to have a boss that is flexible enough to let me do these things.

Anyway, back to the food. There were a few recipes that I considered in this issue. The first was Jamie Oliver's Mulligatawny Soup. I don't think that I have ever made a mulligatawny soup before, although I am pretty sure that I have had it. It looked pretty easy and sounded really tasty but I had just made a soup and even though it is winter, I didn't want to make another one straight away.

Next option was Valli Little's Pumpkin, Sage & Ricotta Lasagne. This is such a good recipe. I have actually made it and various other vegetarian lasagne recipes before. I would highly recommend it. It is an excellent dish for entertaining as it can be made ahead of time and then just popped in the oven when needed. It is also quick to put together and very tasty. If you don't have sage in your garden it is an herb that is seasonal. It can die off in the winter months so supplies of it can be short depending on where you live. You can try other herbs. I have used oregano before and it is lovely but not quite as good as the sage. However since I have made this recipe a number of times it was time to make something else. Although I just had to share it with you all.

I had originally intended on making two different recipes to make a full meal, both from Skye Gyngell's feature on hazelnut recipes. The first is pan-fried veal and english spinach with hazelnut picada. This seems to be an easy dish, the picada with a combination of sourdough crumbs, hazelnuts, sage, orange zest and juice, with a few other ingredients, sounded terrific. To go with that the facing page in the magazine has a beautiful looking roast pumpkin & blood orange salad with toasted hazelnuts. The combination sounds divine. I am not normally a huge orange fan but I do love blood oranges although they are few and far between here. The green in the salad is lamb's lettuce or mache which I don't think I have ever had or seen so I probably would have needed to substitute something else. I have a party this coming weekend for which I am making a few things so I may give it a whirl if I can find some blood oranges. Although I will probably end up just making my spinach, avocado and roast pumpkin salad with lime vinaigrette. I coat the diced pumpkin in garlic olive oil before roasting and it ends up with a beautiful hint of garlic in the salad without it being too overpowering.

After struggling with what to make it was decided one night when I just needed something quick to make after work. I ended up making Valli Little's Thai Pork Stir-fry. This was fabulous. I had most things for it but did have to make a couple of substitutions. I didn't have any green beans so used some zucchini and carrot. I had Asia at Home massaman paste in the fridge so use that one. I didn't have thai basil but did have some sweet basil that I was going to use but forgot until I was sitting down eating. While I was eating this I had vague recollections that I may have made this before, either when issue #62 first came out or as a recipe that I had found on taste.com.au. Although since it isn't saved in my cookbook on Taste I am assuming it was from the magazine. So I guess that I broke my rule about making new things, although I didn't remember that I had made it before which is strange as it was very, very good. I will definitely make this one again. I still have some massaman paste so I might make it again soon. It doesn't look that great on the plate but it definitely is worth making.

March 2004 - Steak Teriyaki

There is much to like in issue #25 and a lot of different recipes to choose from. The cover recipe a warm sweet potato, bean & blue cheese salad with crispy prosciutto looked so very good, the only problem is that I am not keen on blue cheese. I will eat small amounts of it and have made a nice blue cheese dressing in the past but chunks of it in a salad are just not to my liking.

I came close to making Geoff Lindsay's Steamed silken bean curd with chinese black vinegar and chilli. It looked really good in the picture in the magazine and some thing that would be nice, light and easy to make for dinner one night. I have not really done a lot with tofu and I am interested in using it some more. I decided though that I would leave my experimentations with tofu for a dish with more flavourings.

Interesting diversion, there was some rather large explosions happening outside which scared my cats and intrigued me. When I went out the front door there was a bunch of fireworks going off somewhere very nearby my house. I am still intrigued as I was under the impression that fireworks were illegal to possess and use in Australia for the average person. I will have to chat with the neighbours tomorrow and find out if they know anything further. There was a number of other people out in the street watching.

Back to the issue at hand. There is a great article on Sophie Grigson accompanied by some terrific recipes, a number of which I want to make. I am having visitors next week so I am thinking of making the pot-roast pork with star anise, ginger, tamarind and port. It sounds so luscious, although I am not exactly sure what ruby port is, I will have to do some googling on that. There are two different desserts one of which I am champing at the bit to try, raspberry & earl grey jellies. It just sounds so good. I would have made them for this post but there is a dessert recipe in a later issue that just had to be made this month.

The regular feature, simple food, is Easy Asian by Jill Dupleix in this issue. The Steak Teriyaki recipe sounded so easy. I love the teriyaki flavours, I have used the pre-made supermarket sauces but decided that it would be great to make this one. I decided not to serve it with the bean sprouts that Jill did as I can only buy bean sprouts in pre-packed bags that usually look wet and slimy to me. I had a beautiful thick cut piece of scotch fillet steak. I managed not to overcook this one, instead I undercooked it. It was fine to eat but was just more rare than I would have liked. I am starting to get frustrated with cooking steaks at the moment. I just cannot seem to get them cooked just to my liking lately. I used to have no problems. My trouble started when I moved and changed from a gas hob to a very old electric hob. I just cannot seem to get the hang of cooking steak on it. I ended up serving it with jasmine rice and greens sautéed with chilli and oyster sauce. I really enjoyed the whole meal and I am sure that I will make this one again.

Steak Teriyaki

• 4 x 150 g scotch fillet or eye fillet steaks
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil (I used rice bran oil)
  

Teriyaki Sauce

• 2 tbsp mirin
• 1 tbps sake or dry sherry
• 1/4 cup soy sauce (I used light soy sauce)
• 1 tsp caster sugar

Method:

• Combine ingredients for sauce and stir to dissolve sugar. Set aside.
  
• Heat oil in fry pan over a medium to high heat.
  
• Brown steaks on all sides quickly and then cook to your liking then remove from pan to rest.
  
• Remove pan from heat and add ingredients for sauce.
  
• Return to the heat and bring to a boil and cook for stirring until sauce thickens a bit, about 2 or 3 minutes.
  
• Slice steak and arrange on bed of rice. Drizzle sauce over and serve.