Stir Fry

I had been meaning to make stir fry again, but most of the cuts of beef I had on hand didn't strike me as "stir fry" meat. However, given how the last pot roast turned out, I though I might try using one of the roasts for other things. I put a top round roast in the fridge on Thursday to defrost.

Come Saturday night, it was still partially frozen. However, I was only planning on using a bit of it, so I cut off some of the edge portions that were defrosted to make stir fry.

Here's the gist of what I did. Cut the meat into long thin strips. Marinaded them while I cut the other ingredients. The marinade (all measurements are guestiments): 4 tsp ground bean sauce, 2 TB dark soy sauce, 3TB shaoxing wine, 1/2 tsp sugar, 1TB cornstarch. Other ingredients: 4 cloves of garlic, sliced, 1.5 onions sliced, 1/2 large head nappa cabbage in strips, 4 large carrots peel and sliced on the diagonal. I also used a hot pepper that I froze last fall from the farmer's market. It looked like a red jalapeño, but I don't know the type. I seeded it and sliced it. Condiments used included fermented black beans, black beans with chili sauce, toasted seasme oil, peanut oil, and chicken broth.

Put the wok on high and added the peanut oil. When hot, I added the black beans and sauce, stirred. Then I spread the meat over the bottom. Let it cook a bit, then put the garlic and pepper over it and cook some more. Once it browned a bit, I stirred it and added the carrots. I'm not good with the whole stir-fry thing-- I tend to stir a bit, wait, stir a bit, etc. Cooked the carrots a bit, then added the onions, cooked, the cabbage stems, excess marinaded, cooked, added the rest of the cabbage. Added some chicken broth, which was unnecessary, since the cabbage had a lot of water on it from cleaning it. This made the sauce to runny, so I added a cornstarch slurry and cooked a bit. When things were done, I drizzled some toasted sesame oil on it and served it over rice.

The verdict: good flavor. However, the meat should have been cut into smaller pieces. It wasn't tough, but it smaller pieces would have been better.