Saturday, September 04, 2004

Beef with Broccoli

We have my cousin's daughter staying with us for a week just before classes start next week. As a 7 year old, she gets so bored easily. Because it was pouring rain yesterday afternoon, my daughter cannot take her to the library so they stayed home. My daughter tried to think of something exciting to do.

One of the lessons my daughter learned in her baby-sitting classes is to keep kids active and learn something in the process. Last night, she thought of preparing dinner instead. My niece is a fuzzy vegetable eater and she only wants broccoli. Not bad. This is something my teenager loves to prepare, quick and easy and she was not the one preparing the veggies but emphasized that she gave my niece the dullest knife just in case. I did the beef slicing and cooking. Oh, my daughter cooked the rice and set the table. On to cooking.

Ingredients:

5 tbsp of soya sauce
dash of ground pepper
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tbsp of lemon juice
3 tbsp of olive oil
1 lb thinly sliced lean beef
3 crowns of broccoli, sliced in bite sizes
1 medium onion, sliced in bite sizes
2 tbsp of cornstarch dissolved in a cup of water
1 tbsp sesame oil

Mix first four ingredients to make a marinating sauce. Marinate beef for about 15 minutes with the marinating sauce. In a pan, heat 2 tbsp of olive oil and saute the beef until brown. Set aside including the juice extracted from cooking the beef. Save the marinating sauce left for seasoning.

In the same pan, heat the remaining 1 tbsp of olive oil, stir in the onions and cook for about half a minute. Add the broccoli and cook for another 2 minutes, cover the pan but make sure that you stir it once in a while to avoid overcooking the vegetables on one side. If needed, add about 2 tbsp of water to keep the vegetables from drying. Add the beef including the juice set aside earlier and cook for a minute or until it boils. Pour in the cornstarch solution and the sesame oil. Keep stirring to spread the cornstarch solution consistently. Add more seasoning if you prefer.

I prefer my vegetables crunchy so I pay attention to the cooking time. Some want theirs cooked a bit. The choice is yours but the idea of how to cook it is there. My niece doesn't want hers soggy. Hope you'll like it.

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