Pepper Steak

Pepper steak is a very simple dish with only a handful of ingredients. Of course the name implies that the dish contains peppers and steak but it also has onions and this flavorful sauce made with garlic, ginger, soy, and a few other wonderful ingredients. Pepper steak is a Chinese-american dish made normally made in a wok but as long as you have a heavy bottom skillet that can take the heat, you can use that too.

What You Need:

1lb flank steak (I use sirloin or chuck, get whatever is cheapest)
1 large onion
2 large green bell peppers
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbs veg oil or other high temp cooking oil.
1 tsp ginger root, minced
1 tbs soy sauce
1 tbs rice wine vinegar
1/2 c beef broth
1 tbs cornstarch
cooked rice for serving

What To Do:

Place your steak in the freezer for about 15 minutes to help firm it up. It's easier to slice very thinly when it's partially frozen. Preheat your wok or skillet over high heat while you cut the peppers and onions into either slices or bit sized pieces. Once the pan is super hot, add the oil and then the meat in as much of a single layer as you can. Let cook for a minute before flipping over to cook the other side for just another minute. Remove the meat from the pan and add in the onions and peppers. Add in a touch more oil, only if needed. Cook the onions and peppers until they start to soften. Meanwhile, whisk together the soy, rice wine vinegar, beef broth and cornstarch, until the cornstarch is dissolved. Once the peppers and onions are softened just a bit, add in the minced garlic and ginger and cook them briefly until they're fragrant. This only takes about 30 seconds. You want to make sure to keep everything in the pan moving so you don't burn the garlic or ginger. Then add in the cornstarch mixture and add the beef back in along with any juice that collected on the plate. Let it come to a boil and thicken. Serve over rice.