Chef it up, yo!

Danggggggg I accidentally made one of the best dishes that I have made in a looooooong looooong time. Alright, well accidentally? Maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration. I mean come on, I didn’t just walk into the kitchen to get a drink of water and by mistake open the cabinet that holds my saute pan and then whoops! all of a sudden all of the ingredients I needed fell into the pan and by sheer coincidence I turned the burner on and cooked them while reaching for the faucet… Nah, let’s get real here peeps, this was NO accident. I guess what I really meant to say was that I had a lot of basil (thanks Karen!) that was about to go south at any given second and that the package of tenderloin tips I took out of the freezer a couple days ago and shoved somewhere in the fridge, had found me. Yeah so, what was really happening was that I was now operating in crisis mode. Here I was in kitchen stadium holding my two main ingredients and my mind was a clean slate. Blank. When I finally came to, I found myself panic-stricken and sputtering combinations that I had never heard of nor really ever wanted to again. Basil stuffed tenderloin tips? No no no! Can’t be done! Okay okay, tenderloin tips with a basil butter sauce? Yee gawd, child. Tenderloin tips tossed with pasta, basil and I don’t know what? Julia is rolling over… I finally broke down, busted out the Vaio and went Google-diving for inspiration. Now I was in a very deep search here folks, I kid you not. I was so far in (like 20 something pages) that I thought I was only going to be pulling up recipes that were served to death row inmates for their last meals. It was pretty pathetic. But there shining like a beacon in the night, I found this little blog site that had this stir-fry post that clicked in my head nicely. Off I went to reign supreme! 30 minutes later H and I were at the table shoveling this amazing dish into our mouths and gushing about how well the flavors worked together. It was perfectly balanced - a little sweet, a little spicy, and the fresh basil really made it pop. Oh and by the way, did I mention that you can really bastardize this recipe? Go vegetarian and replace the beef broth with vegetable stock and add more veggies…go with chicken and replace the beef broth for chicken broth…go shrimp and replace the beef broth for seafood stock! You just can’t ask for a more versatile recipe than this, my little CIUY suckahs! Eat it up yo!

Spicy Thai Beef Stir-Fry

First 2 minutes:

• 1 large yellow onion, sliced in wedges
• 1 large red bell pepper, sliced in wedges (approximately same size as onion wedges)
• 2 tsp vegetable oil

Second 2 minutes:

• 1 very small pinch of anise seed
• 2 cloves of garlic, diced
• ½ pound beef tenderloin tips, cut into 1-inch cubes (can go up to a pound, if desired)
• 2 individual small thai red chilies, diced (wear gloves, fool!)

The Remaining Ingredients:

• 1 cup basil leaves, sliced lengthwise
• ½ cup beef broth
• 1 tbsp of dark brown sugar
• 1 tbsp fish sauce
• 1 tbsp oyster sauce
• 2 Roma tomatoes, quartered lengthwise

Heat the oil in a wok (or large sauté pan) on high heat. Add onions and red peppers and sauté for about 2 minutes stirring frequently. Add the garlic, beef, and chilies. Saute for an additional 2 -3 minutes.

Add all of the remaining ingredients and continue to stir-fry another couple of minutes, or until the beef is cooked to about medium.

Serve with basmati rice and a sprig of fresh basil for a garnish.

(click on images to enlarge)

The original recipe can be found at: www.nonsequiturs.com

Methane Meter says:

Download or print recipe here:
Spicy Thai Beef Stir-fry Recipe  (PDF 21.1 kb)

This entry was posted on Friday, August 24th, 2007 at 9:41 pm and is filed under Beef, Thai. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.