Chinese fare made at home

Nailed it! You know you show that from the rooftops when you create something awesome form Pinterest, have a really great workout or, in my case, sew a straight line. But I have a recipe that everyone in our family loves and it’s easy to make. So…NAILED IT!

My husband spent some time in China this summer for work and experiencing the culture when he wasn’t slaving away in the heat of the plant. This includes the food. And the food is different. It’s even different from what you experience at the Chinese restaurant down the street. It’s lots of veggies, some meat and usually a sauce.

When my husband came home, he decided he wanted to eat more like the Chinese. Rice, veggies and meat. He figured there must be some good recipes out there for the food he had in China. I had no idea what he wanted. I wasn’t there. So I told him he had to find them. And he did.

He sent me PDFs of several recipes he was interested in. I looked them over, including calorie count and sent him to the grocery store to find some of the more “unique” items on the list. I agreed to make them.

We tried several: chicken and broccoli, chicken fried rice, chicken and bean sprouts, stir-fry pork, shrimp and asparagus and our favorite (and the one I’m going to share with you today) the Chinese pepper steak.

The thing I like about the Chinese pepper steak is that it’s easy to make, everyone loves it and it incorporates meat, rice and veggies so it’s really a one dish meal. And how has time for more than that?

So here is the recipe, which we got from allrecipes.com.

INGREDIENTS:
1 pound beef top sirloin steak
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons white sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
3 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
1 red onion, cut into 1-inch squares
1 green bell pepper, cut into 1-inch squares
2 tomatoes, cut into wedges (we leave this out because we are not tomato lovers)

DIRECTIONS:
1. Slice the steak into 1/2-inch thick slices across the grain.

2. Whisk together soy sauce, sugar, cornstarch, and ginger in a bowl until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is smooth. Place the steak slices into the marinade, and stir until well-coated.

3. Heat 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil in a wok or large skillet over medium-high heat, and place 1/3 of the steak strips into the hot oil. Cook and stir until the beef is well-browned, about 3 minutes, and remove the beef from the wok to a bowl. Repeat twice more, with the remaining beef, and set the cooked beef aside.

4. Return all the cooked beef to the hot wok, and stir in the onion. Toss the beef and onion together until the onion begins to soften, about 2 minutes, then stir in the green pepper. Cook and stir the mixture until the pepper has turned bright green and started to become tender, about 2 minutes, then add the tomatoes, stir everything together, and serve.

And it’s not that bad health-wise either.

This is the perfect week-day meal for busy families and it gives your weekly meal plan and international flavor.

So go! Nail it!