ginger beef and broccoli

I'm always amazed at how the taste of ginger can fit into so many recipes - sweet, savory, hot...ginger does it all. It's one of my favorite things.

Tonight's supper was a simple stir-fry that took me all of 20 minutes, start to finish...and that was with prepping on the fly and some futzing around (because I can never just cook...I always futz, too).



I found a really nice-looking steak at the store on sale, so I scarfed it up with stir-fry in mind immediately. I cut the excess fat off the meat, then thinly sliced it on the bias to keep it tender. I put it in a bowl with about half an inch of grated ginger root, three sliced cloves of garlic, and a couple tablespoons of both toasted sesame oil, soy sauce, and rice wine vinegar. I added a few good shakes of Tabasco, gave it a stir, and set it aside. I chopped up two crowns of broccoli, half a white onion, and six large button mushrooms. The veggies went into a hot pan with canola oil and were tossed till almost crisp-tender. I then pushed the veggies out to the edges of the pan and dumped in the meat and all the liquid with it. I tossed everything over high heat until the meat cooked through...just about 3 minutes. I garnished it with a little sliced green onion, because I was feeling artsy.

I realized after the fact that I forgot to put brown sugar in my meat marinade, but it was still really yummy without it.