Sunday, June 08, 2008

Flank steak stir-fry with a healthy dose of veggies and basmati rice...

10 new recipes was our total for this past week - our picks (though very hard to chose this time!) were those elegant Lemon-Pistachio White Chocolate Buttercream Cookies, the Beef and Bulgur Soup with Chickpeas and the Black Forest Cherry Cheesecake we talked about yesterday.

Today was a pretty hectic day between shopping at the market, getting the lawn under control (lots of rain = grass on steroids!) and trying to fit in at least a few minutes to relax on a weekend evening. Dinner needed to be quick and stir-fries usually fit the bill, so I turned to this Flank Steak with Snap-Pea and Asparagus Stir-Fry for our meal tonight.

As the brown basmati rice gingerly took its time getting done, we simply seasoned a hunk of flank steak with salt and fresh ground black pepper, threw it into a hot skillet and briefly cooked it until the slab was still a little soft in the middle, just about medium-rare. While it was resting, sugar snap peas (see, I told you that the crisp green veggie has grown on me!), fresh asparagus, a few cloves of thinly sliced garlic and a small dose of crushed red pepper are added to the same skillet we cooked the steak in. For a bit of moisture to help cook the vegetables, just a quarter cup of broth is also added. Once they soften slightly and are still crisp-tender, a couple splashes each of salty soy sauce and tangy rice vinegar are stirred into the skillet-full of veggies. You could toss it all together if you wanted, but after we thinly sliced the tender steak (across the grain please!), we arranged each component on the plate and drizzled everything with the flavorful pan juices.

We both liked this, but felt it could have used maybe some sesame oil, sesame seeds or just a little nudge to give it more depth. Jeff did note that it didn't really seem very stir-fryish while I was preparing it... but we'll just chalk that up to semantics I guess. Next time, I would think about starting out by slicing the steak and quickly cooking the strips in sesame oil rather than doing it whole.


2 comments:

  1. That flank steak looks awfully good just the way it is....

    I had to laugh over your grass on steroids comment!

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