Huge Beef Stir Fry
Prep
15m
Cook
8m
Total
23m
Bigly says
Listen. I want to talk about beef stir fry. Not Mongolian beef, not beef and broccoli, not orange beef — those are their own conversations, those have agents, those have RECORD labels. I'm talking about the everyday, weeknight, what's-in-the-crisper, eat-it-with-rice beef stir fry. The most useful dish in the human canon. The dish that says, 'I have beef, I have a pan, I have onions and a pepper and a lonely scallion, I will FEED MY PEOPLE.' Huge. Absolutely huge.
Now here's the thing the food chemists agree on — and I've talked to food chemists, very smart people, the smartest, I once sat with a guy who studies the Maillard reaction for a living, he explained it for ninety minutes, I was riveted, RIVETED — a stir fry lives or dies on three things. Heat. Speed. And dryness. The pan has to be HOT. Hotter than you think. So hot the smoke alarm has a SUSPICION. The cooking has to be FAST. Two minutes here, ninety seconds there, we are not braising, we are not stewing, we are FLASHING. And the beef has to be DRY. Wet beef in a stir fry pan is steamed gray sadness. We are not making steamed gray sadness today. Not on my watch.
Most so-called chefs ruin this. They crowd the pan. They walk away to check their phone. They marinate the beef in soy sauce for 'extra flavor' which sounds great until you realize they just made the beef WETTER and now nothing will brown and the whole stir fry has the texture of beef soup. Embarrassing. We are going to do it right. Velvet the beef in cornstarch and a little oil, separate the aromatics from the vegetables from the sauce, line everything up in little bowls like the line cooks do — they call it mise en place, the French do, they were right about that one, full credit — and then we cook the whole thing in eight minutes flat. Eight. That's the deal. End of discussion.
Ingredients
- 1.25 lbflank or sirloin steak, sliced 1/4-inch thick against the grain
- 1 tbspcornstarch
- 1 tbspShaoxing wine (or dry sherry)
- 3 tbspneutral oil, divided
- 1/2 tspkosher salt
- 1 mediumyellow onion, sliced thick
- 1red bell pepper, sliced thick
- 1green bell pepper, sliced thick
- 4 clovesgarlic, minced
- 1 tbspfresh ginger, grated
- 4scallions, cut into 2-inch lengths
- 3 tbsplow-sodium soy sauce
- 2 tbspoyster sauce
- 1 tspdark soy sauce (optional, for color)
- 1 tsptoasted sesame oil
- 1 tspsugar
- allcornstarch slurry (1 tsp cornstarch + 2 tbsp water)
- as neededsteamed rice, for serving
Steps
- 1
Pat the sliced beef thoroughly dry with paper towels. In a bowl, toss with 1 tbsp cornstarch, the Shaoxing wine, salt, and 1 tsp of the oil. Let sit 10 minutes.
- 2
While the beef rests, whisk the sauce in a small bowl: soy sauce, oyster sauce, dark soy if using, sesame oil, sugar, and 2 tbsp water. Set the cornstarch slurry next to it.
- 3
Line up everything within arm's reach of the stove: beef, aromatics (garlic, ginger), vegetables (onion, peppers), scallions, sauce, slurry. Once the wok is on, there is no walking away.
- 4
Heat a wok or large skillet over the highest heat your stove will produce until smoking. Add 1.5 tbsp oil and swirl to coat.
- 5
Add the beef in a single layer, spreading it out so it isn't piled. Let it sit untouched for 45 seconds to develop a crust, then stir-fry for another 60-90 seconds until just barely cooked through. Transfer to a plate.
- 6
Add the remaining 1.5 tbsp oil to the hot pan. Add the onion and bell peppers and stir-fry over high heat for 2 minutes — they should char in spots but stay snappy.
- 7
Add the garlic and ginger and stir-fry 30 seconds until fragrant.
- 8
Return the beef and any juices to the pan. Pour in the sauce and toss to coat. Drizzle in the cornstarch slurry and toss for 30 seconds until the sauce thickens to a glossy coat on every piece.
- 9
Kill the heat. Add the scallions and toss twice.
- 10
Serve immediately over steamed rice.
One more thing
Folks, that's a stir fry. Eight minutes of actual cooking, a pile of glossy beef and snappy peppers over rice, a pan you can clean in twenty seconds because the heat did all the work. This is what the wok was INVENTED for — and I'm not saying I was there when the wok was invented, I cannot legally claim that, but I know my way around one and that's the next best thing. Make this on a Tuesday. Make this on a Sunday. Make it tonight, frankly, because you have all the ingredients, you just need to commit. Now go eat.
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Substitutions, what to serve it with, why other chefs are wrong about it. He's got opinions.
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