Fist of Kitchen presents… Eat it: China!

meat

• 1½ tbsp. oil
• 1 clove garlic, sliced
• 1 lb. beef, thinly sliced
• 1 tsp. salt
• pepper to taste
• 1 c. soup stock

sauce & vegetables

• 2 tbsp. cornstarch
• 1 tbsp. soy sauce
• 2 tbsp. water
• 1 c. green peppers, finely sliced
• ½ t fresh ginger

preparation

In a hot pan—use a wok if you can—brown the garlic in the oil. Remove, and making sure your oil is really hot, fry the beef quickly. Season. Throw in the stock, and when that’s hot, the peppers and ginger. Once the vegetables are hot, you’re done.

The advice here holds—hot hot wok + tenderloin. When I say “hot,” I mean like Sophia Loren hot. George Clooney in a bathtub hot. OK, maybe not that hot: we don’t want your cast iron pan to actually melt all over your stove. We’ve got this cool infrared thermometer gun (with lasers!) and the wok was 375° before we threw the beef at it.

We used our new and slightly less terrifying mandoline to do up the dreaded peppers. Super-thin slices helped them cook quickly and meld into the dish, muzzling the piquant announcement of “hello I am a green pepper and I taste bad” they usually make with every bite.

You may already know that nobody here at Fist is too keen on green peppers, and we were all surprised at how great this came out. I even snuck down to the fridge in the middle of the night for leftovers…and woke up to find myself plotting about how soon we could eat this again. Uughhh! I shouldn’t be writing this on an empty stomach, either.

We’ve got this in the “book version” section because we didn’t fiddle with the base recipe, but we’ve really improvised with the presentation. Matt was hungry for a sandwich and his idea of making bao was a fantastic one. (Why did it surprise me that these soft, pillowy buns are wheat flour?) He used this recipe from Epicurious. We’ll look for a better one, but this was totally just fine, too. Topped with melty Provolone and cornichons, these won a K.O. victory as the Best Philly Cheesesteak Ever!