Beef with Garlic
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This used to be Beef with Onions, but the first time I tried it there were no onions in the house, and yet I wanted to use up my beef. So I tried substituting garlic for onions.
Later on, I tried it with onions and I thought it was much better with garlic, so I kept the garlic.
Ingredients:
About half a pound of beef round, thin sliced. "Stroganoff" or "Sandwich steaks" work well.
3 cloves garlic to put in with the beef
3 tablespoons sherry/cooking wine
4 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons maple syrup
Chopped vegetables (carrots/celery) to taste
1 Cut the beef into about 1.5" by 1" chunks. (Remember the beef is only about 1/4" thick).
2 Mix the garlic, wine, soy sauce and syrup in a bowl; add the beef and mix it well. Be sure the mixing is done very thouroughly and that as much of the beef as possible is below the surface of the mixture.
3 Put the beef in the refrigerator for an hour. (The fancy term for this is marinate but since you don't actually need to do anything fancy but leave it alone, I'm using the simpler language).
4 Chop up the vegetables, if you're putting them in.
5 Heat your wok until the garlic sizzles. I find the easiest way to do this is go to the bathroom while the wok is heating. By the time you return the garlic should be making a grand noise, which is what we want. If you don't do something diversionary while it's heating, odds are you will think it's sizzling while it's really not quite doing it as much as you want.
6 Dump the mixture in the wok and use your bamboo spatula (which normally comes with the wok) to swish it around continuously so it doesn't burn and is heated evenly on all sides. When it's done, both sides should be brown and there should be no hint of red anywhere.
7 Turn down the heat a bit and throw in the vegetables. Stir them a few times and then
8 Pour the resulting food on to a plate and serve immediately.
Bon Appetit, as they say in France!
A few notes:
The maple syrup might seem like a controversial ingredient when thinking about eating right, but it's only about 100 calories worth of syrup. If you leave it out, the dish tastes too spicy for my tongue. However, you might want to experiment with the amount of syrup or even use brown sugar, which has fewer calories.
I've found the dish is best with the sandwich steaks. They are relatively inexpensive and the thin cut makes them cook fast, which is great for the impatient cook. If you have thicker steaks (like the stroganoff cut), you might have to stand there swishing the meat around for a long time before it's done.