This is not a Thanksgiving recipe. I repeat: This is not a Thanksgiving recipe.
You’ve probably already figured that out by now.
I was cooking my Thanksgiving recipes yesterday–chopping and rinsing and brining–and out of the blue, I knew.
I knew.
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.”
I have long since stopped trying to ignore visions of words written on bright white walls. Every time I follow what the words on the wall tell me to do, things have always worked out okay in my life!
What about you guys? How often do you do what the bright white wall tells you to do?
Oh. You don’t see visions of words written on bright white walls?
Never mind.
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.)
Look at that beautiful, beautiful beef. Pure, unadulterated, and perfect.
Yes, I’m married to a cattle rancher. Why do you ask?
Grab some soy sauce. I used regular, but if you have low-sodium, it’s a smarter choice
Some sherry…(either cooking or regular sherry is fine.)
Brown sugar. ‘Cause a little sweetness is so dang good in situations like this.
Some minced fresh ginger. There’s nothing in the world like it.
Sometimes I slice the peel off of ginger, take a big whiff, and can’t believe what I’ve just experienced. I have similar reactions when I smell:
Rosemary
Cilantro
Lemongrass
I close my eyes and want to die from bliss when these scents enter my world.
And some corn starch.
Add the soy sauce to a medium-sized bowl…
Then pour in the sherry…
Dump in the brown sugar…
And the ginger.
And angels sang from the heavens.
Did you hear that?
There it is again!
Finally, the cornstarch. It’ll give the dish a wonderful, fabulous, sauciness.
Stir this together with a fork until it all dissolves.
Throw the sliced meat into the bowl…
And toss it with your hands.
Important Note: If you prefer, pour half the marinade into a separate bowl to be used in the stir fry later.
Grab a bunch of snow peas. Some folks like to peel off the strings as they would with sugar snap peas…
But that’s really too much work for me. So I just line up a few at a time and lop off the tops and bottoms.
And I don’t care who knows it!
Next up, slice up some scallions, otherwise known as green onions. Just lop off the tops, then cut them into half-inch pieces on a diagonal.
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.
Poifect.
Time to cook everything: Heat 3 tablespoons of oil in a very heavy skillet or wok over high heat. IMPORTANT: The oil must be very, very hot! Throw in the snow peas and stir them around for less than a minute. You want them to stay crisp.
Remove them from the pan. Let the pan get very hot again. It’s essential that the skillet be hotter than Hades.
Use tongs to grab half the meat…
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.
I have no idea what that just meant.
Throw in half of the scallions, too.
After a minute or so, start turning over the meat so it’ll brown on the other side.
After another 30 to 45 seconds (or when the other side starts to get brown) remove the meat from the pan and set it on a clean plate.
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.
But I’ve forgiven myself.
Turn it over and cook it for 30 seconds…
Then dump the rest of the meat (and all the delicious juices) into the pan…
Along with the snow peas. Yum!
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.)
Done! Just dump it all onto a serving platter…
Then, for a little spice, sprinkle on some red pepper flakes.
Serve the platter on the dinner table with a big serving bowl of rice.
Yep. It’s official.
I’m happy.
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!
You’ll love it.
