need Black Bean Sauce! Broccoli is called the “Poor Man’s Asparagus” and I agree, if you treat it right. First you need to start with good ingredients so “British Tender Stem Broccoli” is what you need.
The the stems are tender, but to make them melt in your mouth and not have any crunchy stringy bits a little attention is required. Take a vegetable peeler and gently in a horizontal type fashion remove the skin from the stem.
When making Beef and Black Bean Sauce stir fry, I don’t like to treat the broccoli that I have worked so hard to prepare to a wok. So I cheat and steam it on the side and add it at the end. This way the colour and flavour and texture are perfect. So layer the broccoli in your steamer and put the water on to boil.
Now prepare the other vegetables. Chop about 3-4 shallots and a red pepper into strips. Take about 4-5 button mushrooms and quarter them.
Now get yourself a really nice piece of sirloin steak. What is that you say, sirloin in a stir fry, you must be crazy (or incredibly well off). This steak will see a maximum of 4 minutes in the wok, so it will be a lovely medium rare and soft and melt in your mouth. Prep the steak and remove any fat and gristle because it will not be in the pan long enough to make it anything but nasty. Then cut it into slices of about ¼ inch thick. It should look something like this.
We are done cutting, but unfortunately not done preparing to cook. I like Sharwood’s Black Bean Sauce
I said, I like the sauce, and not all the bits in it. I am here to taste steak and broccoli and not other bits. The sauce just pulls it all together, but the black beans are really bitter. So we need put it through a sieve.
It is kind of like making stock, you put some bits into flavour the sauce and then strain them out
to leave the stock at the end.
Almost ready to cook, so put a couple of tablespoons of olive oil into a wok. And get out your cheat’s garlic an ginger
Put a teaspoon of each into the oil.
If the water is boiling the set your timer to 10 minutes. Put your broccoli on the steam and start to heat the oil in the wok. We want the oil just bubbling to heat and brown the garlic and ginger and flavour the oil but not burn the spices. Garlic can turn very bitter if cooked too hard, so easy does it for now. Once the garlic starts to turn a light brown colour, add the shallots, peppers and mushrooms. Turn the heat up to about ½ way so you hear a little sizzle going on. If it starts to dry out here then add some more oil. Stir constantly until the peppers are at a soft crunch and the shallots have started to turn translucent.
Now crank up the heat to about 80% and add the steak. Stir constantly until all of the meat is brown on the outside, about 4 minutes. Then add the sieved sauce and continue to stir.
At this point I have not mentioned rice. Another of my nemesis, as I cannot boil water with grains and make it good. So I have transitioned the new millennium and do microwave bag rice… sorry but it is better than I can do so I like it more.
Here it is plated up.
