Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Stir fry with pineapple & pepper

I had a chunk of flank steak waiting in reserve from grilling to stir fry this week. The pineapple is due to Brian who cut one up the other night and suggested it be included. I don't think I would have thought of it on my own but from now on it will be included in the roster of protein and produce that get considered for stir fry nights.

Halved 1 orange bell pepper, sliced it into very thin strips and set aside. Minced 4 cloves garlic and 1 inch of ginger, set aside. Took the chunk of raw flank steak (not sure how much, maybe it was 1/2 pound?) and sliced it against the grain into thin strips (1/4"-1/2" wide). Chopped up about 1/4 cup of the pineapple that Brian had previously sliced up. Cut a small head of broccoli (including stems, as always) into slightly more bite-size pieces than usual and set them to steam over the rice. Removed when they were just barely cooked and set aside. Heated 2 tablespoons sesame oil in the wok and added the orange pepper strips , stirring them over high heat until they had some brown marks and were a bit wilted. Removed and set aside. Allowed the wok to cool somewhat, then added the garlic, ginger and a tablespoon red pepper flakes and stirred those about 2 minutes, then added a drizzle more sesame oil and the steak. Cooked until browned, then removed and set aside. Added 2 tablespoons soy-ginger sauce, 1 tablespoon tamari, a tiny splash each of rice wine vinegar and apple juice and brought to a simmer. Then added 1 cup chicken broth, stirred well and sprinkled the sauce with 1 teaspoon cornstarch, stirring very well after adding it. When the sauce was slightly thickened, added the steak, peppers, pineapple and lightly steamed broccoli, mixed together well in the sauce and made sure everything got heated through. Put over white rice and sprinkled with sliced almonds to finish.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

when you say you steamed the broc over rice, do you mean in the same pot (i.e. with the florets sitting on top of the cooking rice), or do you have one of those multilayer bamboo thingys? i would think that the direct method would lead to sogginess.

carla said...

I actually have an electric rice cooker that has a metal basket for steaming veggies on top while you cook the rice...it's great. I usually don't love gadgets but the rice cooker is really handy. Before I had the rice cooker I just put a tiny bit of water into a pot to boil and put the broccoli in on top of it to steam.

Angelica said...

Why, why, WHY is it so tedious to peel oranges???

carla said...

wow--what are you talking about? are you peeling some oranges right now? do you mean pineapples?