Stir-Fried Beef with Ginger and Scallions (薑葱炒牛肉)

A hearty dish with a beautiful pop of color

This is a classic, homestyle Chinese dish that showcases a couple key principles of Cantonese cooking: quickly stir-frying with the high heat of the wok and using the freshest possible ingredients. One of the strengths of this particular recipe is its versatility — I use garlic scapes (syun sum, 算心) here but you could easily swap those out for snow peas, celery, long beans, etc. My mom actually likes to combine the beef with her tomato and egg recipe. This dish brings all the rich flavors of beef and vegetables together quickly, making it my ideal weeknight dinner.

Garlic scapes from the farmer’s market because I wanted the freshest produce possible. To prepare, snap off the woody ends like you would for asparagus and trim off the dried tops.

This dish is great for practicing your stir-frying timing because it’s so important not to overcook any of the ingredients so that you can retain their color and crunch. As chef Leah Cohen has said, the mark of a good chef is tasting as you go. Combined with my own takeaway from years of cooking — that texture is as important as flavor — I want to emphasize that nailing the crunch of the vegetables is as important as making a flavorful beef marinade.

the recipe

Serves two as an entrée

Ingredients:

For the marinated beef:

• 1 lb flank steak

• 3 Tbsp soy sauce

• 3/4 Tbsp garlic powder

• 1 tsp salt

• 1 Tbsp sesame oil

• 1/2 Tbsp cornstarch

For the stir-fry:

• 2 Tbsp oyster sauce

• 2-3 oz crunchy and tender seasonal vegetable(s)

• 3-4 stalks of scallions

• 1 oz ginger (or small knob)

• 2 cloves of garlic

• 2 Tbsp neutral, high-smoke point oil

Preparing and marinating the beef

1. If your steak has any large swaths of fat or blood vessels, trim them. Cut your steak into smaller steaks around 3-4 inches in width. This will help make your slices bite-sized.

   

   

2. Slice the steak against the grain at a 45 degree angle into thin (approximately 1/8 inch) slices. This will increase the surface area that can absorb the marinade and make the beef more tender.

   

   

3. Wash the beef in a colander in the sink and give it a good massage as you do so. This will also contribute to the beef’s tenderness as well as wash away any blood or gamey taste. Squeeze out all the water and then put in a small bowl.

3. To this bowl, add the soy sauce, garlic powder, salt, sesame oil, and cornstarch. Mix well and set aside to marinate on the countertop.

   

Preparing the vegetables and aromatics

1. Mince the garlic. Peel, wash, and slice the ginger into thin (approximately 1/8 inch slices). Wash and chop the seasonal vegetables and scallions into 2 inch pieces. Since all of this will be stir-fried, all the components except the garlic should be chopped into pieces of generally the same size. I don’t mince the ginger here because I like having larger pieces to bite into that subtly influence the flavor of the beef.

   

Stir-fry

1. Heat a wok or large pan up to medium-high heat. Add the neutral oil and let it heat up until it’s glossy and runs easily around the wok.

2. Add the garlic and ginger and stir until fragrant, for a little under a minute.

3. Turn the heat up to high and add your seasonal vegetables. Stir fry until it’s halfway cooked (taste as you go to check).

   

4. Add the marinated beef. Stir fry until the beef is brown and no longer red.

   

5. Add the scallions and oyster sauce to taste (I recommend about 2 Tbsp.)

   

6. Cover the wok for about 30 seconds to let the scallions cook a bit more but not get soggy.

7. Taste each ingredient. It’s best to check on the early side. The vegetables should be cooked but still retain their color and crunch. If they’re undercooked, continue to stir fry.

8. When everything is just cooked through, plate and serve with white rice and a choy of your choice.

   

Enjoy!

Shannon