Beef with Julienne Carrots

Today I want to share with you one simple dish and another, although also simple, requires a few more steps.  These were dishes I made for dinner last night.  The boys had no basketball practice so I actually had time to make a decent meal!  As much as I complain about having to cook, sometimes I don't mind it if it means I get all afternoon to prepare for dinner, instead of feeling rushed as heck when I have the children's after school activities sucking up all my time. 

So last night I made this trio of dishes for dinner.  One of which is just plain silken tofu, straight out of the box, chopped into cubes, with chopped green onions on top.  Pour some soy sauce and sesame oil on top, and you have yourself a refreshing tofu dish.  If you're Asian, this dish is a no brainer.  You probably eat this all the time growing up.

The second dish is so. ridiculously. tasty.  Like, seriously.  And it's once again, SUPER easy to make.  Really.  Have I ever presented a recipe that takes  more than 15 minutes to prepare?  Here's the recipe for the dish.

Ingredients

Marinade for beef:
1 cup of soy sauce
1 tablespoon of sesame oil
2 tsp of sugar
1 tablespoon of wine (again, any wine will do)
1/2 tsp of baking powder

1 piece of steak
3 large carrots, peeled
2 stalks of green onion
2 cloves of garlic, sliced

1 1/2 cup of oil
1 1/2 tsp of salt
1/4 cup of rice vinegar (or any vinegar - I just like rice vinegar because there's a bit of sweetness to it)

Steps

1) combine all ingredients for beef marinade in medium bowl, set aside.
2) trim fat off steak (at least I do, I think they're so gross), cut into strips
3) put beef strips into marinade, hand toss a little so marinade covers every strip, let marinade about 10-15 minutes.
4) julienne carrots.  Set aside.
5) cut green onion into 2 inch pieces
6) heat 1/2 cup oil in pan until it gets really hot.  I use my trusty wok for this.
7) pour in marinaded beef strips and cook until just about done.  Scoop out, set aside.
8) heat remaining oil (you might not need all the remaining oil, you be the judge of your own dish), when oil gets hot, toss in sliced garlic and the white part of the green onions.
9) stir fry garlic and green onion until garlic turns slightly brown (the whole purpose of this is to flavor the oil).
10) toss in the carrots, stir fry for about 1-2 minutes.
11) sprinkle salt on the carrots.  make sure you taste as you go! some people like it saltier, some like it milder.  you be the judge of your dish!
12) pour vinegar on the carrots.  stir and let cook for a minute.
13) toss in beef that you set aside earlier, if dish looks too dry, then pour about 1/4 cup of water.
14) stir and let cook for about 4 minutes, toss the remaining green onions in.  cook for about a minute.

Serve and enjoy!

Again, pour this over a bed of rice, or you can eat this with pasta, there should be enough sauce from the dish to flavor your spaghetti or linguini.  It's SO good.  The key thing is to make sure you throw in the amount of salt that suits you.  Remember, I never measure when I cook, it's all from memory and tons of practice.  And also, what my family likes may not be what your family likes.

As you see in the picture, there are 3 dishes.  The other one is called Egg Plants with Ground Beef.  I will post the recipe for that later.  Just having to recall this one recipe from my memory was time-consuming enough!  Whew!  ;)  Happy cooking!

Xoxo,
Lin