Beef and Broccoli Stir Fry–in a Real Wok!

I once posted about my pretty new non-stick wok.

Turns out, it didn’t last all that long. Non-stick surfaces don’t hold up well with high heat, and before long, I was finding black Teflon flakes in my food. Yuck. I tossed the pan.

Not long after, I had a birthday. My parents gave me a new wok, a much nicer steel one. As we were preparing to pack up everything and move across two states, I reluctantly put it away without ever using it.

When we unpacked in our new place, I found that my new kitchen has about half the storage space as our old place. I have a lot of kitchen gadgets and pots and appliances and tools, so I found myself cramming everything into nooks and crannies, stacking boxes on top of boxes and using all of my spatial reasoning abilities. Long story short, the box with my new wok ended up bricked in a closet with my turkey roasting pan and my entertaining trays. In other words, it got put away and forgotten about.

I remembered it recently, and eagerly dug it out of the furnace room that doubles as a storage closet. But as it needed to be seasoned before putting it to use, I set it aside and made my shrimp stir fry in another pan.

In my defense, I’ve been really busy over the past few months.

But now, I’m done with my coursework for the degree I’m working on, and since I haven’t been able to do my field work yet, I’ve on a temporary leave of absence from school and have found extra time to do things that I enjoy now. So I seasoned my wok!

But first I took a selfie, just because I felt like it.

Don’t mind my crazy after-work hair.

Anyway, here’s the wok. First step was to fill it with water and boil it.

Then scrub it hard with hot, soapy water to remove the initial protective coating. I didn’t take pictures, use your imagination. After I dried it, it looked like this:

Then dribble in a bunch of vegetable oil and coat the pan, using a paper towel to help do this evenly.

Then turn on the heat and let it cook!

But only do this for 10 minutes at a time, letting it cool down in between rounds. I may have gotten impatient and put it in the fridge to speed things up.

Then add more oil and repeat. I tried to tilt the pan so the sides could get cooked too, not just the bottom, but wasn’t as successful.

But the sides did get some color in the end.

So now I’ll tell you about the first meal I made in this!

I looked up a bunch of recipes before deciding that I didn’t feel like following any of them and would just wing it, instead.

I started with a pound of skirt steak.

I tossed the cut up steak in a healthy amount of corn starch, based on what I’d seen in a few recipes.

I heated some oil in my wok, and when it was hot, tossed in my steak.

When it was cooked, I removed the beef from the pan.

In its place, I put a bunch of broccoli.

Which I coated with the remnants of a bottle of stir fry sauce that I had in the fridge.

Since that wasn’t going to be enough, I decided to improvise my own sauce with soy sauce (reduced sodium), minced garlic, sherry cooking wine, rice vinegar, and dried ginger.

I just poured various amounts in the broccoli and let it cook down, adding more of whatever as I went. Very precise.

When it was mainly cooked, I added the beef back in to let it heat up and get coated in the sauce. I didn’t bother thickening with corn starch since there was already a bunch in the beef. It thickened on its own at this point.

Finally, I served over rice. Yum!

My parents own a wok that used to belong to my grandmother. They’ve taken care of it so it’s held up well. I sure hope this one shows the same longevity. With this kind of cookware, washing in soap will ruin the seasoning, so it just needs hot water and scrubbing, meaning that I won’t be able to put off dishes and let food dry onto it. Sure hope I can manage that. Doing dishes really sucks.

Steak Fajitas

Hubby and I love to order steak fajitas at Mexican restaurants. We split an appetizer and then an order of these. They’re always so yummy when someone else makes them.

But I’ve never managed to make steak fajitas worth writing home about.

Mainly because my method was: (a) buy package of pre-cut “stir fry beef” from the grocery store, (b) sauté this with a packet of “fajita seasoning.”

Meh. Underwhelming.

(Is that a word? I’ve heard it used so many times that it has lost that sense of being wrong)

So it had been a long time since I made steak fajitas. Then, somewhat recently, I was inspired to try again. I had a pound of sirloin leftover from a wine fondue night, so I thought I’d turn it into something else. I found a recipe and went with it.

First, I made a marinade. Some soy sauce…

Some red wine vinegar…

Some light corn syrup (I have such few things to do with corn syrup that I was a bit excited about this!)

Some hot sauce… For this, I finally opened the tabasco sauce that was a favor at my friend Diane’s wedding. Another friend had seen it at my house this summer and asked why I hadn’t opened it, what I was possibly saving it for. I didn't have an answer, so maybe it was time.

Also, some black pepper

Here it is, all whisked together.

This was my sirloin. The recipe said to use flank steak, but this was nice too.

After I sliced it up, I smooshed it in the dish with the marinade.

Then I cut up some veggies (onion and green pepper):

And smooshed them in there, too:

Then I put it in the fridge for about 24 hours before sautéing it and serving.

And forgot all about taking pictures.

Luckily, I made it again soon after this. This time, I used skirt steak:

This time around, I whipped up some guacamole to go with it. I started with a lot.

Then I ate a lot while I waited for hubby to get home. I couldn’t help myself. I was hungry.

Ooops. In my defense, that is a very small bowl.

Anyway, when he was about 10 minutes away, he texted me to let me know that he was almost home. I threw everything in a hot pan and sautéed it just long enough to cook the meat. I wanted the veggies to be crispish, not too tender.

When I served, I sprinkled the meat and veggies with some Mexican blend cheese and added a dollop of plain Greek yogurt.

Very yummy, very juicy!

This recipe is definitely a keeper. Finally, homemade fajitas that are actually pretty good! They were both juicy and flavorful, and a very easy weeknight meal if you’ve had the foresight to marinade in advance.

Give it a try!

Barbecue Vinaigrette

I’m not exactly where this recipe came from.

It found its way into my family’s repertoire via a meal-in-a-basket gift one Christmas, or was it a birthday? I guess it doesn’t matter. All you need to know is that it found its way into my family’s hearts (and tummies) years ago and has become a regular on the dinner rotation.

But when I moved out, I never made it on my own.

I’m not sure why. It’s a meal I like. It just never occurred to me to MAKE it for myself, until recently, when I was looking for something new to do with chicken breasts.

First step: poach some chicken breasts in a pot of water. Sometimes I add a splash of vinegar to tenderize it a bit.

Next, start a pot of fettuccini. Or linguini. Or any shape pasta you want, really. I like fettuccini with this.

While these are cooking, you can make the barbecue vinaigrette sauce. It starts off with some barbecue sauce (shocker, right?).

Some olive oil…

Some vinegar (I think I used white wine vinegar since our recipe wasn’t specific)…Don’t worry about the color, I didn’t rinse out my measuring cup after the barbecue sauce.

And some soy sauce.

Whisk it all up…

Meanwhile, your chicken is done. Let it cool for a few minutes…

And drain your pasta.

Pour the vinaigrette over the pasta and mix it in.

Add corn. We usually use frozen, but this time I used canned.

And of course, your chicken gets cut up and put in there, as well.

All mixed up!

Finally, before serving, you can top it off with green onions. Other people in my family use regular raw onions, but I much much much prefer green onions. Much.

Give it another stir, and then serve!

It’s an easy weeknight dish. In fact, the recipe says to chill it before serving, so you could make it in the morning or the day before. Personally, though, I have no idea why it says that. I much prefer it hot, but maybe that’s just me. Even so, it’s not hard to throw together.

It’s a unique flavor combination, flavors that aren’t often mixed with pasta (I’m trying to think of another time I put soy sauce on pasta…), and maybe that’s just what makes this meal work so well. Hubby went back for seconds when I made this, so I guess it’s pretty nummy.

I recommend you try it! Here's the recipe. Let me know what you think!