Week 38 - Chinese Pepper Steak
- kcarl94
- Sep 19, 2018
- 2 min read
Updated: Sep 25, 2018
Last year I asked my mom if she would let me organize them for her. She jumped at the chance. This Chinese Pepper steak recipe was found in that cardboard box she gave me along with 210 more written recipes. They were written on paper, check stubs, napkins, baby announcements and whatever else my mom could get her hands on to write down some delicious recipe. My mom calls it "pepper steak" when she makes it now, and she does it slightly different that the original recipe I found. Neither my mom nor I can stick to a recipe for the life of us!
The recipe calls to brown the steak or stew meat first. My mom marinates the meat in soy sauce for hours before she makes it. I have done it her way many times. I know why you should brown the meat first, it gives you a ton of flavor in all those brown bits in the pan and on the meat. When you marinate the meat and fry it with the soy sauce it stews the meat and you miss out on all those brown tasty bits. Sorry mom, but I think the meat should be browned instead of marinated!
You serve this dish over rice or noodles. Or you can eat it as it. I like a bit more sauce than what I thought the dish was going to provide me so I added extra soy sauce, water, and corn starch.
Chinese Pepper Steak
1 1/2 lbs cubed or sliced steak or stew meat
2 green peppers
1 large onion
water
1 T fresh garlic (you can use granulated or powdered garlic also)
2 T vinegar
1 T sugar
1/2 cup + 5 T soy sauce
2 T corn starch
Brown the meat on medium high heat in 2 separate batches. Add salt & pepper. Do not overcrowd the meat. Browning occurs when the meat is in a hot pan and not overcrowded. When you overcrowd you end up stewing the meat in its juices and this does not provide you with the browning that adds so much flavor to your dishes.
Mix vinegar, sugar, 5 T soy sauce to 1 cup water.
Combine the 2 batches of meat in your pan and add the mixture over the meat. Cover and cook for 1 - 1 1/2 hours on low. Stirring occasionally.
When meat is tender add sliced onion and green peppers. Cook for an additional 10 minutes. (At this point I veered away from the original recipe and added 1/2 cup soy sauce and 1/2 cup water. And I increased the original recipe of 1 1/2 T corn start to 2)
Mix together 2 T cornstart with 4 T cold water. Add to meat and vegetables.
If you would like to add other vegetables go for it! If you are adding carrots, add them with the onions and green peppers. If you are adding broccoli add after 5 minutes. You could also omit the peppers all together and turn this dish into Beef and Broccoli!
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