Stir-Fry Improv

Lauren and I were rushed for time but someone had to make dinner. I’d pulled a frozen steak out to thaw that morning (not that big, not that great-looking), and had noticed the veggie bin was pretty full. “If you’ll marinate this, I’ll stir-fry” I said, and it came out great; so here’s the recipe.

SFU · That stands for Stir-Fry Unit, and we’ll use it for all the ingredients in this recipe, because we didn’t measure any, and I don’t think the proportions matter that much.

Marinade ·

• Soya sauce, 1SFU

• Toasted sesame oil, 1SFU

• Pressed garlic, 1 generous SFU

• Apple cider vinegar, 1SFU

To Fry ·

• Steak, 1SFU

• Broccoli, 1SFU

• Green beans, 1SFU

• Ordinary white supermarket mushrooms, 1SFU

• Red pepper (note for the Aussies: I mean capsicum), 1SFU

• White onions, 1SFU

Procedure ·

1. Cut the steak in thin strips, marinate it for one temporal SFU.

2. Chop the pepper/capsicum, and toss it in the hot wok with no oil; stir it around a bit until it’s got black burn marks here and there. Take it out and set it aside.

3. Chop the next ingredient while the pepper’s cooking, you have to interleave the chopping and frying.

4. Take the meat out of the marinade (some will come with it, that’s OK) and stir-fry it. Set it aside; there’ll be a little marinade left in the wok.

5. Add a little oil to the wok and stir-fry the onions until they’re getting soft.

6. Toss in the rest of the chopped veggies on top of the onions, maybe a little more oil, stir-fry. Sprinkle liberally with teriyaki sauce.

7. Add the meat and burned peppers back in for the last 60 seconds or so of frying.

This sounds complicated but I don’t think setting up the marinade took Lauren more than 15 minutes and I know I had dinner on the table 20 minutes after I walked into the kitchen.

Serving · Goes well with Basmati rice and a low-malt high-hop beer in the Pilsener style.

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