In the Kitchen: Flank steak stir-fry

A few months back one of my favorite blogs to read, Keeping up with the Joneses, posted an awesome Stir-Fry sheet from her Food Network magazine. I searched high and low to find a print out on Foodnetwork.com, but no dice. No fear, I printed out Kendall's picture of her sheet and went about making my first stir fry.

Here's my picture of Kendall's picture, ha. Go here to enlarge Kendall's picture and use as your own stir-fry guide.

I love how this sheet lets you make so many different combinations. I chose to do Flank Steak with a variety of veggies in a spicy sauce. Only problem was, my little picture print-out was missing some of the spicy sauce ingredients! I ended up having to improvise a little, but it still turned out wonderful.

I was also pretty pumped because I have never ever cooked with any steak before! I see a lot of really good sounding recipes with skirt or flank steak, so I was excited to give this a shot. I had the nicest man at the meat counter help me and show me how to cut the meat!!

Ingredients:

- Protein of your choice (in this rendition I used Flank Steak)
- Three cups of your choice of various different veggies, I used Bell peppers, bok choy and meant to use onion, but forgot to ever put it in!
- Scallions and a jalapeno (for garnish)
- Vegetable oil
- 4 cloves minced garlic (less if you make a sauce from the list that is not the spicy)

For the marinade:
- 1 egg white
- 1 tablespoon Chinese rice wine or dry sherry
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch

For the spicy sauce:
- 3/4 cup chicken broth
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
- 1 tablespoon chinese rice wine or dry sherry
- 1/2 teasponn sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 2 teaspoons Asian chili pasta

Preperation:
First whisk together the three ingredients for the marinade add your chosen protein and cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.

While your meat is getting nice and flavorful prep all your veggies. I thought the bok choy was pretty!

Next, mix together all ingredients listed for the sauce. Set the prepped veggies and sauce near the stove.

Ideally you should use a wok, I didn't have one and used a skillet with high sides instead. After an hour, drain excess marinade from your meat. Add vegetable or peanut oil to your pan on medium high heat, and add the protein, cooking for only a few minutes or until opaque (this confused me since steak doesn't really turn opaque!). I just cooked until it was not red anymore. Remove meat from pan and set aside. Wipe pan and add more oil and 4 cloves minced garlic, minced ginger (I omitted this), minced scallions and a pinch of salt and sugar. Stir fry for for about 30 seconds, then add the vegetables, starting with the ones that take the longest to cook. Stir-fry until crisp tender.

Now, add in the flank steak (or other protein) and sauce, stir together until all is cooked through (about 3 minutes).

Serve over rice and garnish. I garnished with scallions and jalapenos, but you could use sesame seeds or cilantro too! I thought this turned out really well and am excited to use a different kind of meat and another sauce next time!

I'm linking up with "Tasty Tuesdays" at A Beautiful Mess!