Epicure Recipe Card #40: Sizzling Beef with Celery


Welcome to the first account of my Recipe Card Challenge for 2010! I’m a bit behind my planned posting schedule but I have legitimate reasons. Firstly, I started a new job just last week and, secondly, I didn’t start off tackling this challenge in quite the correct manner. Instead of planning ahead, choosing a recipe card for the week and making sure I had all the ingredients required, I kind of winged it and suddenly started panicking when I realised I should have been cooking something already.

So one night, when I had defrosted a piece of scotch fillet steak for dinner without any particular culinary direction for it, I went searching through the recipe cards on the prowl for something involving beef. What resulted was this stir-fry which couldn’t be further from what Jill Dupleix had described! I attribute my tweaking of her recipe due to my stubbornness about Cantonese stir-fries and, as always, not having all the stipulated ingredients on hand in order to follow the recipe word for word.

The stir-fry still tastes juicy and characteristically Cantonese despite my fiddling with it. My personal preference is to use beef skirt steak but, Iike I said, I just happened to have some scotch fillet steak at the ready that particular evening.


Beef Stir-fry with Shiitake & Chinese Cabbage
(adapted from The Age – Epicure 50 Best Recipe Cards, recipe by Jill Dupleix)

Ingredients:
·         250g beef, thinly sliced
·         1 portion of My All-purpose Cantonese Marinade
·         6 dried shiitake, soaked in cold water overnight (I’m lucky to have pre-soaked ones by my mother-in-law sitting in the freezer for when desired!)
·         ½ tsp sugar
·         6 medium Chinese cabbage (‘wom bok’/’wong nga bak’) leaves, shredded
·         1 tbs cooking oil
·         finely shredded ginger (optional)
·         ½ tsp salt
·         1 tbs oyster sauce

Method:
  1. Toss beef with the marinade and set aside 20-30 minutes.
  2. In the meantime, remove stalks from shiitake and slice the caps to about 3mm thick. Toss sliced caps with the sugar and set aside. (This helps to remove a ‘fishy/bitter’ flavour that the Chinese describe.) 

  1. When ready to cook, heat the oil in a wok or saucepan to almost smoking on high heat. Add ginger, if using, for around 10 seconds before adding the beef. Stir-fry until most pieces are cooked to medium-well before removing beef from pan and setting aside.
  2. Add shiitake slices to the hot pan and toss until starting to brown before adding cabbage strips and tossing the whole lot until cabbage looks half wilted. Sprinkle in salt and toss evenly.
  3. Return beef to pan along with oyster sauce and stir-fry the whole lot until cooked. Serve with steamed rice.
happy cooking!

12 comments:

  1. Great recipe! I had a pork stir-fry last night and it was good. :)

    Congrats on your new job! I hope it's fun and rewarding!

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  2. One day I'll learn all the different types of meat/beef.....

    I hope the new job is going well. Best wishes and LOL. I am saving the award to post next week cause I have 2 more challenges I committed to do this week. Thanks dear!

    Interesting tips about ridding the mushrooms of the fishy taste. Thanks

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  3. Looks good! All the best with your new job and new recipe cards challenge. Looking forward to more yummy posts :)

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  4. Looks good. I do enjoy a nice serve of Chinese cabbage. Sometimes things deserve a bit of a fiddle.

    Good luck with the new job!

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  5. Am really loving your marinade! It's so versatile. I can't wait to try this recipe. How is work going?

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  6. It's been a while since I have had the chance to visit your blog so I just learnt about your recipe card challenge! Great idea - good luck with it!

    Hope your new job is going well too and you are settling in after your first week! :)

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  7. Yes, this looks like something that I'd definitely have on a weekly basis! Good luck with the challenge... and hope work is going well for you :)

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  8. Looks delicious! I’m kind of disorganised when it comes to cooking, so I often end up making something that I didn’t intend to.

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  9. Yum, it looks fantastic! I love chinese cabbage so this is the perfect dish for me :)

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  10. Yum! This looks like it has a lot of shiitake and cabbage which I absolutely love :)

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  11. hope you're liking the new job? how coincidental that this recipe is by jill dupleix - i've got a few posts (where i've used her recipes) coming up :D congrats on making the start to your challenge!

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  12. Hey Joey, nothing like a quick stir-fry on a weeknight! Job is going ok so far, thanks =)

    Hey Kitchen Butterfly, the job involves a lot of learning at the moment but it will all come with time. Can't wait to see your award post!

    Hey Ellie, I've cooked from another two recipe cards so hopefully I'll manage to post about them soon!

    Hey Conor, thanks! Didn't like Chinese cabbage as a child but it's grown on me since =p

    Hey Trissa, still getting used to names, faces and procedures but otherwise feeling a bit more comfortable at the new job =) And yes, a very versatile recipe!

    Hey Rilsta, as inspired by your Cookbook Challenge! And I'm slowly settling in, thank you =)

    Hey Betty, easy to make and easy to eat on a lazy night =p And the new job is coming along nicely, thank you!

    Hey Belle, I thought I'd defrosted pork chops last night but they turned out to be lamb cutlets instead so I know exactly what you mean!

    Hey Jacq, thank you! Perhaps this could get you cooking more Chinese food?

    Hey Lorraine, quite a bit of both but I think a little more wouldn't hurt!

    Hey Panda, the new job still requires some getting used to but it's ok. Jill Dupleix does some easy to follow recipes and I think the whole deck cards feature only her recipes!

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