Beef Stir Fry

Ingredients (4 servings)

Beef & Marinade

  • 1.5-2 pounds flank steak
  • 1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
  • 2 tablespoons soy sauce (premium if available)
  • 1 tablespoon cooking wine
  • 0.5 tablespoon chili paste
  • 2 eggs
  • 1.5-2 tablespoons corn starch
  • Ground black pepper
  • Sriracha

Aromatics

  • Many garlic cloves, minced
  • 2 scallions, minced
  • A few tablespoons of ginger, minced

Sauce

  • 3 tablespoons cooking wine
  • 2 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
  • 1 tablespoon water

Vegetables

  • 1 Bell pepper, sliced
  • 8oz mushrooms, sliced
  • 1-2 cups broccoli, sliced
  • The remaining scallion bunch, sliced
  • 1 can water chestnuts

Other Stuff

  • 4 tablespoons peanut oil
  • Sriracha
  • A wok
  • Stirring utensils, preferably wooden
  • A plate or bowl for storing the cooked meat

Directions

  1. Prepare the meat marinade: whisk all ingredients together in a container. Pepper and Sriracha don't need to be measured exactly, just eyeball it - a few squirts of sriracha, probably less than a tablespoon of pepper.
  2. Slice the flank steak diagonally into bite-size pieces and mix into the marinade.
  3. Let the meat marinate at least 1-2 hours. Only refrigerate if you're not going to cook it in the next 1-2 hours.
  4. Mix all the sauce ingredients together in a bowl. They will separate a bit over time, that's ok.
  5. Slice all the veggies into separate bowls or plates.
  6. Mince all the aromatics into a single bowl or plate.
  7. Heat the wok on high, we want this shit 🔥 extremely hot 🔥. If using a cast iron wok this takes about 10 minutes.
  8. Add 1 tablespoon of peanut oil, swirl it around the wok, then stir fry the meat a few minutes until its browned. Work in batches unless you have a gigantic wok: we want as much wok surface area contact with the meat as possible. Typically this is 2 batches, use 1 tablespoon oil for each batch. As the meat is cooked, remove it to a plate.
  9. Let the wok heat up again for a few minutes.
  10. The sauce may need to be mixed back together at this point if the liquids have separated a bit.
  11. Add 1 tablespoon of oil to the wok, then add the aromatics and stir fry. Work quickly! About 1 minute until the ginger & garlic are browned, but not burned.
  12. Add the sauce to the aromatics and stir for 1-2 minutes until it cooks down a little.
  13. Add the vegetables and stir fry for 8-10 minutes. The amount of time depends on the type of vegetables, how much you like them cooked, etc.
    • Broccoli and mushrooms are good to add immediately: broccoli takes about 10 minutes, mushrooms really absorb the stir fry liquid.
    • Scallions and bell peppers can be added a few minutes later.
    • Water chestnuts can be added 5+ minutes in.
  14. Add sriracha and/or a little more peanut oil to make sure this is cooking up nicely.
  15. When the vegetables are cooked to perfection, add the flank steak back, stir to combine & reheat the meat.
  16. Serve & EAT.

Nutrition / Servings

  • Ingredients listed above for 4 servings
  • 525 calories / 29g fat (50%) / 43g protein (33%) / 23g carbs (17%)

Side Dishes

  • Rice, absolutely required, preferably jasmine.

Notes

The first real recipe I ever learned to cook was "Mongolian Beef," from a cookbook given to my mom by friends whose family ran a Chinese restaurant. This is an evolution of that recipe, with a less memorable name!

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