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.
- 1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
- 1 tbsp. oyster sauce
- 150 g beef steak or tenderloin thinly sliced
- 1/2 tbsp. Chinese cooking wine Shaoxing wine
- 2 tsp. corn starch
- 1 tbsp. water
- 1 tsp. sesame oil
- 1/4 cup vegetable cooking oil , with around 2 tbsp. removed
- 2 garlic cloves chopped
- 150 g fresh snow peas
- pinch of salt
- 1 tsp. dark soy sauce
- 1 tsp. light soy sauce
- 1/4. tsp. sugar
- 1 tsp. cornstarch
- 1/2 tbsp. water
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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.
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Mix stir-frying sauce in a small bowl.
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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.
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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.
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Add beef slices back and stir in the stir fry sauce. Quickly fry until well mixed.
I love snow peas. Their crunch is incredible. Tender beef and crisp peas. I can’t wait to try this😋.
They are so good together. Happy cooking!
Hi Elaine,
I was about to start cooking and just noticed that on your instruction, it’s missing the oyster sauce and water for marinating (step 1). I’m assuming that I need to put all the marinating ingredients (sesame oil later) along with the beef?
My family enjoys your recipes very much!
Thank you!
100% Ria.
All the marinating sauce should be added in the very beginning. Thanks for the correctness.
Elaine – love your recipes! Have to note that the STEPS on your page for this recipe have different ingredient(s) than the printed recipe. In the steps you say light soy sauce and nothing about sesame oil, while in the recipe you say oyster sauce and add the sesame oil? Which is it, and may I suggest one or the other be corrected? Thanks Alley
Nice catch, Allison.
Please follow the recipe section version. I forgot the update the previous content. My fault! I have already updated and make the correctness.
Hi Elaine loved my trip to Sichuan comming back in November ,I like the cold. I have tried a few recipes very happy .
Cheers Ian
Thanks Ian. Welcome back to Sichuan!
Elaine: A lot of Chinese recipes call for using Shaoxing wine (Chinese cooking wine). What is the purpose of this? Is it really necessasry?
Please reply to me @ [email protected].
I Thank you in advance for your help.
Hi Sue,
Cooking wine is quite necessary for lots of Chinese recipes especially for meat dishes. It helps to remove the raw taste.
While this all looks great what can you substitute when you are allergic to fish and seafood?
You can skip to oyster sauce and use light soy sauce + sugar as a substitute. In addition, there are vegan oyster sauce which is made with oyster mushrooms.
Hi, I’m hoping to make this for dinner, but the measurement for sugar in the stir fry sauce is missing from your recipe. 1/4 what? A cup? A tsp? Thank you!
It is 1/4 tsp. Thanks for the catch.