Chinese Style Shredded Beef

Recently I ate at my friend's house, a Chinese house, with a mom that is an incredible cook. She made so many delicious, comforting dishes but the one that stuck out the most was this shredded beef dish! The texture of the beef changes when you shred it. I scoured the internet for some recipes and I ran across a few but took a few tries for me to get this recipe to my personal liking. I hope that this dish is as comforting to you as it was for me! Definitely a dish you could whip out on a weeknight after a day of work!

Ingredients: 
1lb of flank steak - shredded
(I sliced the steak thinly and then shredded the steak with my hands)
1 whole red pepper - julienned
2 stalks of celery - julienned
3 cloves of garlic - minced
1/4 cup of sliced ginger
1 teaspoon of rice vinegar
1 teaspoon of sesame oil
1 teaspoon of Chinese cooking wine
1/2 a small onion - julienned
1 tablespoon of black bean sauce
1 teaspoon up to 1 tablespoon of - sugar - balances out the salt

Steak Marinade:
2 tablespoon of soy sauce
1 tablespoon of tapioca starch
1 tablespoon of oil

Optional: 
2 stalks of green onion
1 jalapeno

Shredded beef! Take a sharp knife and cut your steak as thinly as you can and then gently shred the meat like you would tear a piece of paper down the middle. Funny concept but it works! Then marinate the shredded beef with the steak marinade for at least 15 minutes: soy sauce, tapioca starch and cooking oil. 

COLORFUL! I love when my ingredients are as colorful as the rainbow. :) 

As the meat is marinating (and you've made rice), start by heating up some cooking oil and cooking the aromatics - garlic and ginger. Satay for 2-3 minutes. 

Then stir in all the vegetables - except the green onions - sweat the vegetables down for 5-7 minutes. Once the bell peppers are soft and the onions are translucent, remove from the pan, we will add them back later.  

Time to cook the star, add some more cooking oil and then add in all the beef to the pan! Stir fry until the beef is fully cooked, add in vegetables. I totally forgot that photo. Sorry! Stir fry together and then add in your sauces: black bean, rice vinegar, sesame oil, and cooking wine. Taste then add some sugar to your liking and also, some more salt to your taste. I feel like with black bean sauce you need a bit of sugar to counteract the extreme umami flavor it gives. But of course, you can completely omit! 

Serve over rice! 

Enjoy!

XX

Kathy