Ginger & Shallot Beef with Broccoli

During my 2 years stint as a waitress in a small noodle bar in my university days, I’ve learned 2 valuable lessons:-

(1) Food industry is a tough business. Not only the food has to be exceptionally good to stay ahead in this competitive market, you have to be a good manager, juggling between pricing and staffing etc. Basically it’s a one man (woman) show, like blogging, but just a hundred times’ tougher! So think twice before venturing into food biz.

(2) How to make a decent stir fry. Although I wasn’t officially taught by the chef but from bits and pieces of observation I gathered, I’m pretty confident in dishing out stir-frys when I’m in need of no fuss and last minute entertaining idea.

Ginger and shallot stir fry is the house specialty in the noodle bar where I used to work and it’s amazing how versatile this stir fry can be – you can replace beef with chicken or seafood; broccoli with asparagus or snow peas or sugar snap. So why not add this to your long list of stir-fry repertoire, in addition to your sweet and sour or black bean stir-frys!

Ginger & Shallot Beef with Broccoli

(A Fuss Free Cooking Recipe)

Serves 2

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

300g broccoli (one broccoli)
400g steak (I’ve used rump steak)
2.5 inches ginger
3 shallots (aka scallions or spring onions)
2 tbsps cooking oil

Steak Marinade:

2 tbsps light soy sauce
A pinch of salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp white vinegar

Stir Fry Sauce:

1 tbsp oyster sauce
1/2 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp white pepper
2 drops sesame oil
3 tbsps water
1/2 tbsp corn flour (aka cornstarch)

Method:

Cut broccoli into florets.

Cook broccoli in SALTED water for 1/2 minute. Drain and set aside.

Slice shallots diagonally.

Skin and slice ginger into thin strips (like the photo below). The finer the better! (…which I haven’t done a good job, obviously).

Thinly slice the steak. You can skip this step if you bought the pre-sliced meat (if you don’t mind paying the extra cost). 🙂

Combine all the marinade ingredients in a big bowl and add the steak. Set aside. (I add A BIT of vinegar in attempt to tenderise the meat. Better than using baking soda right?)

Combine all the sauce ingredients in a bowl or measuring cup.

{Sauce mixture}

Once all the prep work is done, heat up your large pan / wok with 2 tbsps of oil. When the oil is slightly hot, add ginger and shallots and saute until aromatic (which takes about half a minute) on high heat.
Add the marinated beef and try to spread it out (to avoid overlapping between slices). Let it cook on one side until about 3/4 cooked (or lightly charred on the pan side down)
Then use a spatula to flip the beef (in order to cook the other side) and add the broccoli also.
At this stage, you might end up with some gravy oozed out from the beef. There are 2 ways you can go about it: (1) Remove the beef and broccoli into a serving plate and cling wrap over it. Then add the sauce mixture into the gravy and let it simmer until thickens to your desired consistency. Then add back the beef and broccoli and coat the ingredients with the sauce – a method as seen in Nigella Kitchen – her Teriyaki chicken recipe remember?; or my lazy way – (2) Push the ingredients to the side of the pan (or in my case the wok like the photo below), add the sauce mixture and let it simmer until thickens. Then coat the beef and broccoli with the sauce.

Serve immediately with rice. Sprinkle some more chopped fresh shallots if desired.