Chinese Crispy Beef with Green Beans

Last night for dinner I made Chinese Style Crispy Beef with Green Beans. To be honest, I'm not sure that it's an authentic Chinese dish to begin with, but it's a very popular dish in Americanized Chinese restaurants like P.F. Chang's.

Broccoli is more commonly served with Crispy Beef, but I had good green beans on hand so I used them instead.

First assemble the ingredients needed to make the sauce - Soy Sauce, Mirin (or Chinese Rice Wine), Rice Vinegar (and/or Lime Juice), Brown Sugar, Sesame Oil, Ginger, and Garlic. I always use fresh garlic, but if you don't have fresh Ginger handy, several stores have minced or processed Ginger which I always keep in the fridge. I won't give you exact measurements as it's best to figure this sauce out on your own by taste. But for the simple marinade I used for the steak and later as the sauce, it was about:

1/2 cup soy sauce
2-4 tablespoons of Mirin
2-4 tablespoons of Rice Vinegar
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
1 clove of garlic finely minced
1-2 tablespoons of sugar
1 teaspoon of minced Ginger.

The sauce I make is a very versatile Chinese/Japanese style sauce I use in a variety of dishes. By substituting a few ingredients here and there - say use Shaoxing Rice Wine instead of Mirin to go Chinese instead of Japanese - or use fresh lime juice instead of rice vinegar and you get slightly different variations on the same type of sauce, all with pleasant results. You can also change how much of each ingredient you want - say add more vinegar and lime juice for a sour or citric flavored sauce.

The first thing you'll want to do is marinate your meat. The meat I get comes pre-sliced which is very convenient. It looks kind of like this picture I took at a Korean BBQ restaurant.

But if you can't find already pre-sliced meat you can do it yourself. Take your cut of meat (tenderloin, flank, strip, whatever) and place it in the freezer for at least 30-45 minutes or until the steak is firm, but not frozen solid. This will make the steak MUCH easier to slice.

I place the steak in some Tupperware and stir in the sauce. With most cooked dishes I make, the first thing I do is start heating pans or preheating the oven. But when meat needs to be marinated, that should come first as meat needs to marinate at least 15-20 minutes if not overnight.

While the meat marinates, I put one pan over medium heat and add a cup or so of cooking oil. You'll want to use an oil with a high smoke point like Vegetable or Peanut. A second pan will be used to cook the sauce and other vegetables later.

Also, I set the oven to broil. The green beans I cook separately (again, broccoli is more commonly used in this dish, but you can prepare it the same way). Trim the green beans and place them in a foil covered pan. Splash a little oil over them, season with salt and pepper, and give them a good toss. Place them in the oven on broil for about 2-3 minutes or until a very light char appears. Green beans are good to eat raw, so they do not need to be cooked very long; however, a nice char compliments most vegetables. The green beans can be cooked ahead of time, as they will be reheated later. If you prefer less steps, you would add the uncooked green beans to the pan the same time you add the celery and peanuts later on. Personally I just love the char you get on green beans when you broil them briefly, and the same applies to broccoli.

I also gather the other ingredients which I will be adding to the sauce. This is a good time to chop a rib or two of celery.

Celery, Peanuts, and Chili Oil

Red and Green Thai Chili Peppers (Chopped and Whole)

Next, set up your "dredging station." The key elements for this will be a place to dry off the meat, a place to cover your meat with flour, and plate to put your meat on before it goes into the oil (if you're a very quick cook, you can skip this and go right from the flour into the oil - I like to to get everything ready first, so that I can cook the meat in a few batches and make sure it all cooks at the same speed).

Lay out a few paper towels and a jar for later to pour out your used oil (it's not good for the sink disposal).

Next to the paper towels I place a Tupperware container which is filled with flour. Next to that I put my plate - I sprinkle some flour on it to keep anything from sticking.

Place the slices of meat on the paper towels to drain off the excess marinade (if the steak is still too wet with marinade, the flour will get too soggy and the crust will not stick to the meat).

Throw another paper towel over the meat and pat it dry. Repeat with additional paper towels as needed.

Then add the meat to the flour.

Coat the meat evenly. When you remove the meat from the flour container shake off additional flour.

Repeat until all the meat is lightly coated in flour.

And get ready for some frying action!

Using tongs, add a few pieces of flour coated steak at a time. If you add too many to at a time it will "overcrowd" the pan and lower the oil temperature - which means you you'll have soggy beef, not crispy.

Cook about 1-2 minutes per side, or until the meat starts to brown. If the oil is too hot the meat will darken too quickly. If the heat is not high enough, you wont see a lot of bubbling or boiling. On my stove top, the medium setting works perfectly, but stoves can vary...

Once finished, remove the meat from the oil and set on some paper towels to drain excess oil. Honestly, I might have cooked the meat just a tad too long, since I kept having to stop and take pictures. The meat pictured below tasted great, but it came out just a little darker than I wanted. So remember - the thin slices cook extremely fast.

Once you've got all your meat cooked, remove the pan from heat and move on to another preheated skillet or wok set to medium. Wok's are ideal for this, but I find that any non-stick skillet will work as long as it's deep enough to hold everything you're going to put in it.

Add some Vegetable or Peanut Oil (a couple tablespoons).

Next, pour in the remaining marinade from the steak.

The important thing to remember if you are using the marinade is that raw meat was sitting in it; meaning that you have to cook the sauce long enough to kill any harmful bacteria from the raw steak. Generally speaking, as long as you get the sauce up to a rolling boil, it should be safe by the time you're done. If you don't feel comfortable with this approach, simply make a second batch of the sauce/marinade and don't put any meat in it.

As the sauce cooks and begins to reduce, I add the chopped and whole Thai Chilies.

And the Chili Oil... If you don't like a lot of heat, omit the Chili Oil. If you REALLY don't like spicy food don't add the Chilies either.

Next add your chopped Celery and a small handful of peanuts.

Let that cook for a minute. The next two steps will happen very quickly since the green beans and steak are already cooked. So add your green beans.

Then immediately add your crispy steak.

Give it a good stir/toss so that the green beans and crispy steak are coated with the sauce. As soon as they are coated, remove the food from the heat (if you cook the crispy steak in the pan too long, it will get soggy).

And you're ready to plate! I had some leftover White Rice from the night before, so that made the perfect thing to serve with the Crispy Beef and Green Bean stir fry. I also topped it with some Toasted Sesame Seeds - because they taste great, and they make the dish look more refined.

Enjoy!