Beef Chop Suey

Hello again. I hope everyone is well. I was feeling ambitious, so I looked in our Chinese cookbook and found a recipe I thought worked.

Yummy Chinese

Beef Chop Suey 

1 lb rib-eye or sirloin steak, finely sliced
1 head of broccoli, cut into small florets
2 tbs vegetable or peanut oil
1 onion, finely sliced
2 celery stalks, finely sliced diagonally
2 cups snow peas, sliced in half lengthwise
1/2 cup fresh or canned bamboo shoots, rinsed and julienned (for fresh, boil in water for 30 minutes first)
8 water chestnuts, finely sliced
4 cups finely sliced mushrooms
1 tbs oyster sauce
1 tsp salt
Marinade
1 tbs Chinese rice wine
pinch white pepper
pinch salt
1 tbs light soy sauce
1/2 tsp sesame oil

Combine all marinade ingredients in a bowl and marinate the beef for at least 20 minutes. Blanch the broccoli in a large pan of boiling water for 30 seconds. Drain and set aside. In a preheated wok or deep pan, heat 1 tbs of the oil and stir-fry the beef until the color has changed. Remove and set aside. In the clean wok or deep pan, heat the remaining oil and stir-fry the onion for 1 minute. Add the celery and broccoli and cook for 2 minutes. Add the snow peas, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, and mushrooms and cook for 1 minute. Add the beef, then season with the oyster sauce and salt and serve.

Results
Overall, a good and not to mention healthy, recipe. It was a little time consuming, but I actually had help with it from everyone. There is something I should note about this recipe: it has been tampered with. I like to toy around with recipes if:
1. I have done this before and want to tweak it up
2. I do not have all the ingredients

The changes are:  I did not have bamboo shoots, so I used bean sprouts. I also used less onion than what the recipe calls (I only used half the onion because fresh onion and my stomach do not get along too well). I also did not use salt in the marinade.

This recipe was not nice on time. It took an hour from start to finish. Part of that was the marinade and the other part was I was cooking brown rice on the side (it takes about 45-55 minutes to cook) since I did not know what Katherine would think of this recipe.

Part of my veggie collection

Chopping up veggies took up some time and thankfully, I had help with that. Jeb would chop up some veggies and Katherine brought them to me. I have come to the conclusion everyone is willing to at least try what they have helped out with.

Although the cooking itself was straight forward, the overall taste begged to differ. I had to add extra oyster sauce to try and get some flavor to the dish. Without it, all you could taste was salt, cooked rib-eye steak, and fresh veggies.  In the end, it took about double the amount to get something flavorful.

Rib-eye steak

The plus side to this dish was I got to try something new: Blanching. It was an easy, painless experience and the broccoli tasted superb.

Once on the table, everyone at least tried it. Jeb and I liked it. Katherine stuck with rice, but did eat her broccoli (and is still eating it when placed in front of her).

All in all, a recipe I would try again either for a rainy day or when Katherine is eating a bigger variety of food. It was a little more time-consuming  than I care to try with a 4-year old. The taste and the challenge is what make this recipe worthwhile. If I try this recipe again, it would be to use a different variety of veggies as well as a food processor on some the veggies that require a finer chop.

Well, time to head out for the night. I hope you enjoyed this post. Until then, keep cooking.