Menu for 03/08/11 - Beef and Broccoli Stir-fry (Dude1)

When I was young my family did not go out to each much, but when we did, it was often to a Chinese restaurant.  I almost always chose beef and broccoli from the menu.  So, I decided to give an old childhood favorite a try.  I've made stir-fries in the past, but with those handy-dandy bottles of stir-fry marinade or mixes, full of preservatives and MSGs.  The challenge for me tonight was to make the marinade and sauce from scratch. 



I've adapted a stir-fry recipe from Shu Han at Mummy, I can cook! I'm excited to follow a real food advocate with an Asian background. 

Beef and Broccoli Stir-fry

Serves 6

Ingredients:

• 1 - 1.5 lbs sirloin tip beef roast (grassfed)
• 3 - 4 broccoli florets
• 1 small white onion cut into wedges
• 4 julienne cut carrots
• 4 cm peeled ginger, sliced thinly
• 5 cloves of minced garlic
• 3 Tbl of extra virgin olive oil
• 3 Tbl of coconut oil 

For the marinade

• 1 Tbl arrowroot
• 1 Tbl rice wine
• 1 eggwhite
• 2 tsp soy sauce
• 1 Tbl of sesame oil

For the sauce

• 1/2 C of homemade stock
• 2 Tbl soy sauce
• 2 tsp of rice wine
• 2 tsp brown rice vinegar
• 1 tsp of sesame oil
• 2 tsp of sucanat
• 2 tsp of arrowroot mixed with 2 tsp water (to thicken the sauce)

Note: The rice wine and rice vinegar may be hard to find.  Luckily, my health food store carried them.

Thinly slice the beef, against the grain.  Mix up the marinade and soak the beef in it for 30 min on the counter. 

While the beef marinades, prepare all your veggies and the sauce.  For the sauce, combine everything except the arrowroot and water mixture.  This will be added as a last step to bring the sauce to the desired consistency.

Use 1 Tbl of the olive oil and 1 Tbl of the coconut oil and heat in a large pan (woks work great) over medium high heat.  Then add the carrots and onion and cook for about 5 mins. Be sure to occasionally flip the veggies to keep them coated in oil and to prevent burning.

At this point, I ditched the camera.  Things move too quickly with the frying.

After the carrots and onion are done, remove them from the pan into a large bowl and set aside. 

Add another Tbl of olive oil and coconut oil to the pan.  Add the broccoli, minced garlic, and ginger.  Fry, occasionally flipping, until the broccoli reaches your desired tenderness.  Remove everything from the pan into the large bowl with the carrots and onions. 

Add the remainder of the olive and coconut oil to the pan.  Now cook the meat in the pan.  OK, so I have to be honest here.  This part did not go the way I wanted it to go.  Why is red meat always so hard for me to get right?  The marinade instantly stuck to the pan; because of the high heat and eggwhite I'm guessing.  I had too much meat to where it was layered in my pan and because it was stuck for a while I couldn't even flip it.  A bunch of the meat got steamed instead of fried as a result.  You want to quickly fry the strips of meat on high heat.  Cooking should only have to last a minute or two, but my meat was not done in that short amount of time.  I ended up cooking it for more like 5 minutes because of the issues.  Next time, I'm going to try doing the meat in two batches so all the meat strips can be properly cooked in the oil.  Alas, my meat was not as tender as I like. It wasn't bad.  It just wasn't great.  Do you have any other suggestions?

Once the meat is done, remove it from the pan.  Now add the sauce to the pan and bring it to a boil.  Once the sauce is boiling, add the arrowroot and water mixture a little bit at a time.  As you stir the sauce it should begin to thicken.  Keep adding the arrow mixture until your sauce reaches the desired consistency. 

Now, you get to throw everything back into the pan.  Mix well with the sauce so everything is coated.  I served this over rice.

Enjoy!