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Quick Beef Stir-Fry with Bell Peppers

Quick Beef Stir-Fry with Bell Peppers

Sometime in the mid-80s I gave my father a subscription to Gourmet Magazine for Christmas. I think this goes down in family history as the most appreciated gift ever given to him by one of his kids. He continued to subscribe to Gourmet for at least 15 years. Over the last few years, mostly to get ideas for this site, dad has been skimming through decades old issues that he still has in stashes all over the house. Here's a recipe he came across last week that was surprisingly good, considering how simple the ingredients, and how quickly and easy it was to cook. The original recipe called for chuck, we used top sirloin, which made the beef strips very tender, but because the strips are so thin, and cut across the grain, you could easily use chuck. I also added sliced onions to the peppers because well, steak and onions are just plain good.

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Quick Beef Stir-Fry with Bell Peppers Recipe

Ingredients

  • 1 pound top sirloin or chuck steaks (about 1/2 inch thick), trimmed
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 large garlic clove, minced
  • Olive oil, grapeseed oil, or canola oil
  • 2 medium bell peppers, one red, one green, sliced into 1/4-inch strips
  • 1/2 yellow onion, thinly sliced lengthwise (root to top)
  • A dozen cherry tomatoes, cut in half, or one large tomato, roughly chopped
  • 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

Method

1 Season the steaks with salt and pepper and rub minced garlic over them, both sides. Place the steaks between two sheets of plastic wrap. With a meat pounder, pound the steaks to a 1/4 inch thickness. Let the steaks sit for 10 minutes to absorb the flavor of the garlic. Then cut them across the grain in 1/2-inch wide strips.

2 While the steak is sitting, heat 2 Tbsp oil in a large skillet on medium high to high heat. Add the sliced onions and bell peppers, cook, stirring, until just barely tender, about 1-2 minutes. Add the tomatoes and cook for another minute. Remove the vegetables from the pan to a bowl and keep warm.

stir-fry-beef-bell-peppers-1.jpg stir-fry-beef-bell-peppers-2.jpg

3 Heat an additional 2 Tbsp of oil in the skillet on medium high to high heat, until the oil is shimmering, but not smoking. Add the strips of beef let the beef brown initially, without stirring, but as soon as it is brown on at least one side, then stir. Cook for no more than a minute (for rare). Add the vegetables and Worcestershire and cook for a half minute longer, stirring. Remove from heat.

Serve alone (low carb), or with steamed rice. Salt and pepper to taste.

Serves 4.

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16 Comments

That looks soooo good !! I will be trying this recipe for sure !! Was wondering, could you use round steak instead? I'm on a very tight budget right now.

Posted by: Cindy S on September 22, 2008 4:50 AM

It would be a little more work, but how about adding some lightly sauteed portobello mushrooms... steak, mushrooms, onions and veggies. Totally delish!

Posted by: Cynthia on September 22, 2008 11:36 AM

Both my parents and my in-laws make something like this before. It's good, but once I went Asian, I could never go back to this. Just last night I made some beef and peppers with Lee Kum Kee's black bean garlic sauce. Cooking rare is a must for nice tender meat, and don't forget it will continue cooking on the serving plate too. I had the heat on the stove super hot (max) and cooked the beef and sauce quickly then threw in the peppers and cooked for another minute or so. Next time I might put the peppers in earlier like Elise did.

Posted by: David Grant on September 22, 2008 11:40 AM

Can't get any simpler than this. I have been using a quick pepper steak recipe using mirin, sesame oil, soysauce, brown sugar but the Worcestershire sauce cuts the chase, yet resulting to almost the same flavors. Thanks!

Posted by: lalaine on September 22, 2008 12:16 PM

For an added flavor, I marinate the beef strips in 3 tablespoon soysauce, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, 1 tsp grated ginger and 3 cloves crushed garlic (up to an hour). I save the marinade and add about 2 teaspoonful of cornstarch to it and add the mixture to the pan after cooking the meat and vegetables. This makes a nice gravy to pour over the rice.

Posted by: aida on September 23, 2008 5:49 AM

I saw this recipe yesterday and had to try it.

The only thing I changed was added a whole onion, Mushrooms and used Soy Sauce insted of Worcestershire sauce.

I was super simple and very good I will make it again just want to add a litle more flavor.

Lee

Posted by: Lee on September 23, 2008 8:04 AM

Whenever you write about your dad, I think about mine and miss him and the slap-dash way he cooked. He would have liked this...simplicity was his middle name. And, by the way, I just so look forward to your lovely spare prose, the way you tell tales and describe an event or incident that led to your choosing a certain recipe. So many food bloggers write with a thesaurus at their elbows. Thanks, Elise, for the recipes and the tone of the site...but most particularly for stories about your dad.

Ah, thank you Jean. My father was an English teacher who used to brutally edit my essays with a red pen, cutting out every unnecessary word. So I developed a short writing style; the shorter the prose, the fewer the cuts! ~Elise

Posted by: Jean Prescott on September 24, 2008 5:48 AM

This is very similar to how I make stir fried whatever. I'm into simple, easy, and tasty and this works. Thanks for sharing it with us and the photo looks fantastic!

Posted by: Denise on September 24, 2008 6:21 AM

I don't know if any of you have ever tried this, but a recent recipe in our local newspaper for peppers and onions called for peeling the bell peppers with a very sharp vegetable peeler before cooking them. What a difference it made in the finished dish. I know a lot of recipes call for broiling peppers to remove the skin, but that's a big mess and I never thought of actually peeling them. It was relatively quick and the results were delicious.

Shuna, of Eggbeater once fed me a thin slice of a peeled bell pepper. What a difference! Wow. Sort of like a peeled grape. Great idea if you have the time. ~Elise

Posted by: Liz on September 24, 2008 9:20 AM

Thanks for the recipe. I guess this stirfry is a "dry" stirfy? If you wanted to make the stirfry a bit more saucy, perhaps you could try adding a bit of water, then adding a mixture of cornstarch and water to thicken up the sauce.

Posted by: Cory on September 24, 2008 9:57 AM

Just wanted to let you know that we made this last night, and it was absolutely delicious. We had fresh peppers from our CSA. I brought left-overs to work for lunch! Thank you for another terrific recipe!

Posted by: Wylie on September 29, 2008 8:27 AM

Excellent and easy. I'm going to make it again this week. Thanks

Posted by: Jenny on October 6, 2008 8:44 AM

Add a little Mexican seasoning and serve with softened flour tortillas. Fajitas!

Posted by: Lisa on October 30, 2008 1:45 PM

Really loved this! Being asian, I'm used to making stir-fries with either soy sauce or oyster sauce and the meticulous steps for cooking each component. This was so easy and the worcestershire sauce on its own provides great flavor. Thanks for posting!

Posted by: phyl on May 27, 2009 7:43 PM

Looks good but underneath it could I put spaghetti noodles instead of rice?

Sure, if you want. ~Elise

Posted by: sara on June 30, 2009 5:41 PM

Just made this, for extra bit of flavor i chopped a few parsley and threw it at the end. Great flavor

~Milka

Posted by: Milka on August 21, 2009 4:07 PM

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