Simple Fare, Fairly Simple

I have a cousin that lives in Idaho (Hi Ann!!)...but we used to 
 live right down the street from each other several years ago 
when we both lived in California. That was so fun. We'd go walking together...bum rides off of each other....pick each others kids up from school. She moved to Idaho...I moved to South Carolina. We both have grandbabies now. Wow...things change, don't they? I remember her talking about making beef and broccoli for her family and I always thought it sounded hard because it was Chinese food and I thought you could only get good Chinese food in a Chinese food restaurant...or in China. Well...guess what??? It's NOT hard at all! I asked her for her recipe quite a while back and I'm just now getting around to trying it out. You should try it, too!! It's delish!!

My Cousin’s Beef and Broccoli



Marinade:

1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 clove garlic – minced
½ teaspoon powdered ginger
1 splash of sherry
1 tablespoon oil
½ - ¾ pound flank or skirt steak – sliced thin across the grain

Combine all marinade ingredients in a large zip top bag. Add meat and marinate in the fridge for
30 – 60 minutes.

Gravy:

1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon water
1 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoons soy sauce

Combine ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.

Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a wok or large skillet until very hot. Stir fry beef until medium or medium-rare. Remove meat from wok and set aside on a plate.

Heat another tablespoon of oil in the wok until very hot and add about 1 pound of broccoli or stir fry veggies. Cook for about 1 minute then add 2 tablespoons of water. Cover and simmer 5 minutes or until veggies are tender. Add the beef and gravy mixture and cook until sauce thickens.

*Optional: Add 1 – 2 tablespoons oyster sauce to the gravy for a more Asian flavor.

Serve with Jasmine rice

Serves 2 – 4 people

Here's what you need for the meat marinade.

Combine the oil, garlic, soy sauce, ginger, 

cornstarch and sherry in a plastic bag.

Then add the thinly sliced meat. Let that 

hang out in the fridge for about an hour.

Here's the gravy stuff. Combine that and set aside. 

Here's where you can add 1 - 2 tablespoons of 

oyster sauce if you want.

In a very hot wok or skillet, add some oil then throw in the marinated meat. Cook that until done to your liking. 

Remove the meat from the wok.

Add the broccoli. In my case, I didn't have broccoli but I DID have some stir fry veggies and they worked great. 

I put them in frozen. Cook the veggies for a bit...

..then add the meat back into the wok along with the gravy.

Stir and cook until the gravy thickens. 

Enjoy with some jasmine rice!!!