Stir-Fry Beef

Marinade

2 lb lean beef, sliced thin
1/4 c. oil
Juice of 1 lemon
3 or 4 cloves of garlic roughly chopped

Mix, pack into a ziplock bag or other sealed container, and refrigerate for a few days. Turn or shake every day to stir the juices around.


Stir Fry

Gather vegetables for stir fry. Almost any vegetable is good, just use what you have.  Some examples could be:

ginger, red and green peppers, onion, yellow squash

onion
bell pepper
carrot
mushrooms
sweet potato
broccoli
squash
cabbage
water chestnuts
celery
fresh ginger
small hot peppers
(don't eat these last two! They're there to flavor the juices.)

A variety of colors is more pleasing.

Prepare vegetables for stir-frying and set aside in separate bowls.  Slice or, where that isn't suitable, as for example broccoli florets, break into bite-size pieces.

Heat a large pan.

Add 2 Tb. oil.  Peanut oil is best for stir-fry.

Stir-fry the meat in small batches, 1 or 2 minutes on each side.   Replenish oil as needed.  Don't crowd the pan; meat should fry, not boil in marinating juices!  As the pieces get done move them from the pan to a large bowl.  Drizzle in soy sauce, if you are using it, after the food is taken from the pan because the sauce will scorch and burn.

beef stir-fried in peanut oil

Next stir-fry the vegetables one by one, hot and fast and not too long, as you want them to be still colorful and not too soft. Layer the vegetables over the meat in a bowl.   Allow pan to heat back up between batches, adding more oil as needed.

Sauce

No sauce is needed for stir-fry but if you want it, mix a spoonful of cornstarch or white rice flour into a cupful of cold water until it is well blended, no lumps, then pour it into the emptied pan.  Scrub the bottom of the pan vigorously with a spatula  while the water is heating to get up all the stuck good bits.  (If anything has scorched, obviously you won't be able to do this.  Clean the pan first!)  Have more liquid handy because your sauce will thicken rapidly once it's hot.

In stir-fry, some sort of sweet and sour blend works best.  Believe it or not, that familiar red sauce is made from water, vinegar, sugar and ketchup.  I like lemon or lime, orange or pineapple juice, just enough sugar to overcome the tartness, and soy sauce.

Toss stir fry layers together (with sauce if you have any) and serve over rice.

Stir fried beef with vegetables over rice

 To see a full set of photographs showing how this dish was made, go to this set on flickr.  (It will open in a new tab or window; to return to this page, just close it.)  The small pictures are thumbnails; click on each one to see it full-size, and to read the comments under it.  If you prefer to use the slideshow feature, you won't see the captions unless you click on "show info" (top right).

This is #98 in the Baker's Dozen Challenge Coundown.