Among all of the meat dishes, I love basic stir fries the most. Once you master the basic steps of stir-frying tender meats, the combination can be magic.
The most famous combination for a successful beef stir fry can be beef with green pepper, beef with celery and beef with broccoli. The former two are extremely popular inside China while the later one is almost nowhere to find. The overall principle is to match beef with something crunchy, either plain itself or sweet or hot. After absorbing the flavors and juice of the beef slices, the side vegetable turns itself into a main star too. If you want to make your beef delicious in stir-frying dishes, I recommend marinating the beef with oyster sauce. Oyster sauce, is believed to be the best ever partner for beef. It provides a strong savory and slightly sweet flavor, which highlight the original aroma of beef slices.
Cook's Note
- Since the dish is loaded with a heavy and thick sauce, you can use cheap cuts of beef. In fact, in most authentic Chinese beef stir frying dishes, we use tenderloin. Beef steak is not commonly available in China 10 years ago and it is still quite expensive now.
- When cutting the beef, it is important to comply with the "against the grain" rule, which helps to cut off the fiber and create a tender texture.
- I highly recommend frying the beef slices with a larger amount of oil. Then you can serve the oil for other dishes, especially for vegetables.
- You can replace snow pea with broccoli for this recipe. The only difference is that, in order to keep the crunchy texture, broccoli should be blanched firstly before stir-frying.
Steps
Cut beef into thin slices and then marinating with marinating ingredients and cornstarch, except sesame oil. Set aside for at least 15 minutes. Mix in sesame oil just before frying.
In a small bowl, mix all of the stir fry sauce together.
Heat the pan firstly and then add oil. When the oil becomes slightly hot, spread beef slices in. Let them stay for a while and do a quick fry until they turn pale.
Transfer the beef out and leave only 1 tablespoon of cooking oil in pan. Slow down the fire, place garlic and snow peas in. Fry for half minutes until just cooked.
Add beef slices back and stir in the stir fry sauce. Quickly fry until well mixed.
Beef with Snow Pea Stir Fry
Ingredients
Beef and marinating
- ¼ tsp. ground black pepper
- 1 tbsp. oyster sauce
- 150 g beef steak or tenderloin thinly sliced
- ½ tbsp. Chinese cooking wine Shaoxing wine
- 2 tsp. corn starch
- 1 tbsp. water
- 1 tsp. sesame oil
Others
- ¼ cup vegetable cooking oil , with around 2 tbsp. removed
- 2 garlic cloves chopped
- 150 g fresh snow peas
- pinch of salt
Stir fry sauce
- 1 tsp. dark soy sauce
- 1 tsp. light soy sauce
- ¼. tsp. sugar
- 1 tsp. cornstarch
- ½ tbsp. water
Instructions
- Cut beef into thin slices and then marinating with marinating ingredients and cornstarch, except sesame oil. Set aside for at least 15 minutes. Mix in sesame oil just before frying.
- Mix stir-frying sauce in a small bowl.
- Heat the pan firstly and then add oil. When the oil becomes slightly hot, spread beef slices in. Let them stay for a while and do a quick fry until they turn pale.
- Transfer the beef out and leave only 1 tablespoon of cooking oil in pan. Slow down the fire, place garlic and snow peas in. Fry for half minutes until just cooked.
- Add beef slices back and stir in the stir fry sauce. Quickly fry until well mixed.
Nutrition
Michael Allen
Quick and easy recipe, as well as delicious. Just got a bag of fresh peas from our neighbor's garden. I added carrots and water chestnuts for texture and mushrooms. Male cook (not a pro), age 73.
Elaine
Thanks Michael for the feedback!! I love to get a garden with fresh vegetables too.
Julie Logue-Riordan
Our garden was bursting with sugar snap peas and this was a great way to enjoy them. The recipe was fast and easy. The only thing I would change is to not add the last teaspoon of cornstarch to the sauce. The sauce was thicker than I generally like. If you like a thicker sauce leave it in.
I look forward to trying more recipes from this site we love Sichuan food and this was very authentic.
Elaine
Thanks Julie!!!
W. R. Freden
Explain to me how you cut "against the grain" ? ACROSS the grain is understood, With the grain is understood.
Elaine
Thanks for the suggestion, Freden!
Pj
I wonder where you got your PhD in how to be pedantic? ?
none
You can cut all 3 ways. Its like driving a car, across the grain is like cutting a car off from the front, from one headlight to the other. With the grain is forward, in line with the tires. Against the grain is you hoping on the hood and running to the back of the car/ trunk of the car. Descriptions are not always precise and I think most people get it.
R Sanders
I whipped this up using snow peas from my garden. I increased amounts by half again, but the 3 of us had no trouble emptying the dishes! Delicious!!
Elaine
Freshly pickled snow pea is the winner. Super fresh and delicious.
Ruth
This is my FAVORITE dish when we go out. Decided to make this recipe. I followed it to the letter. It was very bland for us. Not sure what happened, but it just wasn't enough flavor for us.
Elaine
Ruth,
This is a light dish itself. But the beef should have enough flavors if well marinated.
Eve
(In reference to what Ruth said) I didn't think it was bland at all. I loved this recipe. It has opened my mind to stir fries without too many ingredients. We used a nice Porterhouse steak and this was a great recipe to highlight its natural flavour. The oyster sauce marinade was magical in enhancing that flavour, too.
Elaine
Thank you Eve. Some dishes don't have bond flavors but they do taste good. Thank you.
Raph.
I did 1-1/2 lbs (about 700 grams) of beef with the 3X versions of the other ingredients.
It was absolutely delicious. Some of the modifications I made:
-Replaced the Shaoxing wine with 2/3 Mirin and 1/3 rice wine.
-Added 1 onion, 1 carrot.
-Added some crushed red pepper (depending on how hot you like it, I like mine medium-hot) to the marinating sauce as well as some black pepper.
-Added some sesame oil to the vegetables when cooking them.
Elaine
Raph,
Lovely trying. I love to see this tremendous personal twist! Adding some crushed red pepper is absolutely a loving idea. Happy cooking!