Beef with Snow Peas

By Cdreamgirl

Ingredients

• 1-1/2 pound Flank Steak, Trimmed Of Fat And Sliced Very Thin Against The Grain
• 1/2 cup Low Sodium Soy Sauce
• 3 Tablespoons Sherry Or Cooking Sherry
• 2 Tablespoons Brown Sugar
• 2 Tablespoons Cornstarch
• 1 Tablespoon Minced Fresh Ginger
• 8 ounces, weight Fresh Snow Peas, Ends Trimmed
• 5 whole Scallions, Cut Into Haf-inch Pieces On The Diagonal
• Salt As Needed (use Sparingly)
• 3 Tablespoons Peanut Or Olive Oil
• Crushed Red Pepper, For Sprinkling
• Jasmine Or Long Grain Rice, Cooked According To Package

Preparation

Step 1

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It came to me in a vision. I saw it written on a bright white wall. “Ree,” the bright white wall read. “You must make beef with snow peas. It is your destiny.”

Let’s just make the beef with snow peas and forget this ever happened…okay?

My favorite meat for stir fry is flank steak, because it remains so, so tender when you slice it very thin. And the flavor is totally phenomenal. With a very sharp knife–cut it into very thin strips. You’ll want to slice against the grain, slightly on a diagonal (rather than a ninety degree angle to the grain.)

Add the soy sauce to a medium-sized bowl…

Then pour in the sherry…

Stir this together with a fork until it all dissolves.

Important Note: If you prefer, pour half the marinade into a separate bowl to be used in the stir fry later.

Finally, cook some rice. This is jasmine, but you can do regular long grain or brown rice. Whatever makes your skirt fly up!

Jasmine rice: 1 cup of rice, 2 cups of water, 1/4 teaspoon salt. Bring it to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cover. Cook for 15 minutes. Turn off heat, leave it covered for ten more minutes. Poifect, poifect rice, baby.

Time to cook everything: Heat 3 tablespoons of oil in a very heavy skillet or wok over high heat.

Throw in the snow peas and stir them around for less than a minute. You want them to stay crisp.

Throw it into the very hot pan, being careful to spread the meat out into a single layer as you add it. Important: Don’t start stirring/moving the meat around; let it stay right where you put it for a good minute. That’ll help give it some really nice color, which is what life is all about. The skillet should be so hot that the meat sizzles violently.

Repeat with the other half of the meat and the other half of the scallions, the latter of which I plum forgot the add to the pan.

Give it a quick stir…

And pour in the rest of the sauce/marinade. You don’t want any of the goodness to go to waste.

Stir it around until it bubbles up and boils, then go ahead and turn off the heat. The sauce will still cook and thicken and become wonderful.

(Note: It does not bother me to boil the same liquid that was used for the meat, but if you poured off half the liquid before soaking the meat, just pour the extra liquid in here.)

Enjoy this, guys! It really is a simple stir fry recipe that can be adapted in any number of ways: use chicken instead of beef, change up the vegetables…anything goes. Just make sure you let the pan get very hot before adding the ingredients!

In a bowl, mix together soy sauce, sherry, brown sugar, cornstarch, and ginger. Pour half the liquid over the sliced meat in a bowl and toss with hands. Reserve the other half of the liquid. Set aside.

Heat oil in a heavy skillet (iron is best) or wok over high heat. Add snow peas and stir for 45 seconds. Remove to a separate plate. Set aside.

Allow pan to get very hot again. With tongs, add half the meat mixture, leaving most of the marinade still in the bowl. Add half the scallions. Spread out meat as you add it to pan, but do not stir for a good minute. (You want the meat to get as brown as possible in as short amount a time as possible.) Turn meat to the other side and cook for another 30 seconds. Remove to a clean plate.

Repeat with other half of meat, allowing pan to get very hot again first. After turning it, add the first plateful of meat, the rest of the marinade, and the snow peas. Stir over high heat for 30 seconds, then turn off heat. Check seasonings and add salt only if it needs it. Mixture will thicken as it sits.

Yum! I don’t do stir-fries often, but they’re a welcome change of pace. I think I’d add some garlic to the marinade.

Mmmmm…me too. And I’d add broccoli too. And serve over noodles. Geez I’m hungry.

I agree. Garlic, ginger, & soy sauce combined are one of my faves.

I also wanted to add, that for a finer result with the ginger, you can freeze some peeled ginger (I store a bunch this way for whenever I need it) and grate it… it comes out like icey snow… and perfectly melts into the dish – no big overpowering pieces. I love it this way. Rachel Ray gave me the idea.

This is very very similar to the Korean BBQ marinade. SO. YUMMY. Garlic will just add to the deliciousness.

Heather

ps, I plan to add a few shakes of red pepper flakes to the liquid mix.

ooh! you make me want to eat this for breakfast!!!!

This looks terrific – I’m going to make it this week!

There are some times I really don’t like being a vegetarian. This is one of those times. But I will make it for my carnivorous husband.

I made this last night and was thinking it could easily be made into a vegetarian stir fry for my diet restricted brother in law. Just add broccoli, green beans (which I chose instead of the snow peas), bell peppers, zucchini…whatever! It will be great!

place of the flank steak.

really add a lot to the flavor. I’ve seen Hoisin mentioned as well and

adding 2-3 tablespoons would be great, but it will make the sodium

i absolutely agree with flank steak for stir frying. this looks delicious! the charred bits of meat are the best bits!

Beef, snow peas, soy sauce, ginger? More than delish! I’m just gonna add some garlic to make it perfect. Mahalo, P-dub! What a way to start the week…

You have succeeded in making me crave beef for breakfast. Me. That’s so not like me. How did you do that?! I was going to make chicken stir fry this week, so perhaps a substitution is in order.

Showed me how to make a quiche.

This is one of our favorite stir-fry recipes, in fact, it’s on my menu plan for this week. There are slight variations, but you can’t beat the great flavor, the snow peas, the garlic. I could make this every week and no one would tire of it. Great leftovers, too – if there are any. Yum……… Ree – thanks for sharing.

We can’t get good Chinese food in our new home (rural Maine isn’t a hotspot for Chinese immigrants), and for some reason it is one of the ethnic cuisines by which I am intimidated…. however, you make it look both easy & yummy! My family thanks you

Great recipe, but the only addition I would suggest (being Asian myself) is a splash of sesame seed oil either in the marinade or at the end very before serving. It’ll give it a delicious nutty flavor!

I think I’ll make this for Thanksgiving just because you said it wasn’t a Thanksgiving recipe. Oh, OK, how about Christmas Eve? My big chef’s pan is dying to put this one into action.

I could so eat a huge bowl of that right now! I do love some beef stir fry and haven’t made it in ages! I also love the smell of fresh ginger and rosemary too!

What a beautiful stir fry! I have never used flank steak in a stir fry before. I must try this out for sure.

The other great thing about this recipe is that is very Chinese-ish. (yeah, I just made that up.) And now that we’ve moved to China, I’ve been having to transform my recipe repertoire because I can’t find a lot of the ingredients I’m used to using. All of these are easy to find here… and I can make this dish feed 4-6 people for about $3. It’s a win-win!

I’m always looking for a perfect stir-fry recipe. I’ll give this a try, but like some others have mentioned, I will add some garlic. I think red peppers with the snowpeas would also be a good addition.

I think red peppers would be a good addition, too.

When you look at a piece of meat, usually you can see long strands of muscle fibers in clumps. Each clump comprises a different muscle. The orientation of those strands is referred to as “the grain.” For instance, the backstrap or tenderloin mentioned above is the muscle that runs along either side of the spine. . . and it receives the least exercise, which is why it is so amazingly tender and cooks so quickly. If you were to slice that long muscle into circles, you would be cutting across the grain, or against the grain, as chefs put it. But if you were to slice the muscles into long strips the same length as the whole muscle and without cutting in the other direction to make short strips, you would be slicing or cutting the meat WITH the grain. Oh yes, it matters! Slicing with the grain makes for a tough bite, difficult to chew and likely to choke you. Slicing across or against the grain makes each of those fibers much shorter, and therefore much easier to chew (delectably TENDER!). Here’s to “going against the grain!”

I can’t wait to throw some oyster sauce into the marinade and turn this into beef with oyster sauce (or at least, the closest version I’ll probably ever make at home). Thanks for the tutorial on a good stir fry!

I hate it when people read a recipe that someone has vouched for and then immediately say : “Oh, Yea, and you should also add …. (fill in the blank) ! Having said that, may I now say : “Where’s the mushrooms ?”

This looks marvelous. I love stir-fries and even took a Chinese cooking course many eons ago but the main problem I have now is that our present home doesn’t have a proper hood over the range…just a microwave as so many do now-a-days, so if I try to do anything with very hot oil or lots of spices, it smokes up the whole house and the smell lasts for a couple of days. Is anyone else facing this problem?

Miss Ree..this looks just perfect!! (: I cannot WAIT to make it this week! And some people even eat Chinese food on the holidays! Remember the turkey incident in A Christmas Story? hahah Anyways, I love your blog, love Black Heels to Tractor Wheels, love your photography, just love love love yall!

I was just wondering if you have t-shirts for sale & if not why not? I know I’d buy one! Just one more resource for the kids’ college funds! Maybe something with the picture of the vintage cowboy & cowgirl? Or maybe a cowboy’s backside while wearin’ his chaps! I think they’d be fun & make great gifts!

Also, do you have a place on your website where all the videos are grouped together?

My husband just walked by while I was looking through this recipe. He stopped in his tracks, “What are you lookin’ at? That looks GOOD. Can we have that instead of chili tonight?” No he can’t, I already have the fixin’s for chili…but tomorrow I promised to make this for him. Then he went on, “Can you add onions instead of them green thangs? And maybe you should make 2 steaks instead of 1, so I’ll have left overs for lunch. And make lots o’ rice. And can you make them pot stickers again? I love them thangs.”

Good thing I don’t live close to you girl – “cause I would be knocking on your door looking to score some of this beef stir fry. That beef is looking mighty tasty. Good thing you didn’t go all Thanksgiving on us

MMM…you sure know how to make a girl crave some steak! I wonder if this would work without soy sauce? I’m on a no-soy thing because nursing an MSPI baby. Can’t have butter either. Not exactly sure why I torture myself with your fabulous looking recipes but what can I say? I just love you that much!

Wow, Jen, thanks for saying that- you are saving me. We all need friends and good feelings in our kitchens. A little kindness and a lot of humor goes a long way, and the encouragement to make mistakes and make what you like sure helps me every day.

Yum… but if i may add a tip? Reversing the cooking order (meat first, then snow peas), will add the flavor of the sauce and the meat to the snow peas when you cook them. Toss the meat quickly to half cook, then remove. Add the snow peas, and stir fry very briefly, and then add the meat back in. Stir fry together for a few minutes, until the meat is done. Add the leftover sauce to heat it up, one more quick stir, and put it all on a plate. Ta-da! Deliciousness!

Looks delicious! I would totally make this but I’m hesitant to re-add the leftover sauce to the already cooked stirfry, since it had raw meat in it. Am I a Nervous Nelly?

Sometimes you do have to worry about that, but since you do let it all cook for a bit once you add the sauce, you’ll get it up to the right temperature and it’s fine. Do take her advice and let it heat for 30+ seconds, though.

Ree, you killed it again! can’t wait to make this !

So pretty I love stir frys

I desperately want to make this but have an allergy to sherry, can anyone tell me what I can substitute it with? Thanks.

For the record….my family is known for doing asian or mexican or german or whatever strikes our fancy at Christmas and we have been known to do a few unusual things at Thanksgiving too. It makes life exciting.

This was in response to Kathy G — don’t know how it get separated! But now I can add that for volume alone I’d add water or stock/broth.

As odd as it sounds, I have an uncle who always brings some sort of stir fry dish to our thanksgiving. We have no asian roots of any kind. He’d love this

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