Skytte's Kitchen: Beef Stir Fry

This recipe is a quick stir fry which you can whip together in 20 minuts. So please don't give me that "I haven't got time to cook"-excuse and start chopping. Ok, there is a bit of preparation in chopping the ginger, garlic, chili and coriander, but even slow cooks can do that in 5 minutes. It's taken from Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food campaign. If you're not familiar with that, his philospohy is that you should learn a simple recipe, master it and then pass it on to a couple of friends or family, so they can learn to cook it and pass it on to their friends. This is my bit then, passing on the recipe. Cook it and impress your friends. Then teach them how to cook it. This is, in fact, what I'm trying to do with this blog in general - showing recipes for you to cook and pass on. Give it a try, it's easy, fast and even quite healthy. Read more about The Ministry of Food here : http://www.jamieoliver.com/jamies-ministry-of-food/

Ingredients (4 pers.):
2 cups of basmati rice
3 cups of water
Salt
Small bunch of fresh cilantro
3 cm of fresh ginger
1/2 chili
2 cloves of garlic
1-2 spring onions
350 g beef
1 tbsp sesamo oil
2 tbsp neutral oil
1/2 jar of Oyster sauce or black bean sauce (from an Asian food shop)
1/2 lime
1 large egg
Soy sauce

Before you start, put your rice to boil. Peel the garlics (easier by crushing them with your hand or a pan first) and the ginger. Remove the seeds from the chili if you don't want it too hot. Wash and dry the cilantro. Cut the top half off and reserve for later. The fresh ingredients are key to this recipe.

Chop everything, including the cilantro stalks, fine (use a food processor if you have one).

Cut your beef in fine strips against the fibre. On this picture you see the fibres clearly as the straight lines on the meat below. By cutting the fibres you won't end up with chewy balls of meat in your mouth.

Slice the spring onion. Mix the meat with the onion and chopped ginger/garlic/cliantro.

Add the sesamo oil. This oil has a nice nutty flavour which adds a nice asian dimension to everything. You can find it in Asian food shops. You can prepare all this in advance and leave the meat to marinate for a couple of hours in advance. Just remember the meat shouldn't be too cold when you fry it.

When the rice is done, rinse it under cold water. This will remove some of the starch on the rice so it won't clog together when you fry it.

Get a large pan or work smoking hot and add a bit of neutral oil. Throw in the meat and keep stirring. It's important the pan is as hot as possible. Don't remove from heat while frying. Keep stirring until the meat is cooked. Should take no more than a couple of minutes. Add the oyster or black bean sauce and heat it through. Squeeze the half lime over it and remove from heat. Pour it in to a bowl and reserve.