Chinese Beef With Black Bean Sauce

By Peter Alfieri

This recipe incorporates the now popular "Flank Steak," I often think of different ways to prepare it. Typically flank steak is tough because it doesn't have much fat.

However, through careful preparation, this recipe makes the steak easy to chew and of course it's quite tasty!

A few years back, flank steak was dubbed "London Broil," and it sold for $1.99 per pound. After the low fat craze hit "London Broil" was renamed to "Flank Steak" and now sells for about double.

Who said changing your name can't give you more value? Well, whatever the case is, this now popular low fat meat earns it's place on my ingredient list.

Give this recipe a try, I'm sure you won't be sorry that you did!

Difficulty (Scale from 1-10): 6

Serves: 4
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients for Stir Fry

12 ounce flank steak
1/2 cup of drained black beans (from can)
1 large Vidalia onion
1 head of broccoli
3 tablespoons of peanut oil
3 cloves of garlic - minced
1/2 teaspoon of ginger powder

Ingredients for Sauce

1 tablespoon of soy sauce
1/3 cup of water (cold)
2 teaspoons of sugar
2 teaspoons of sesame oil
2 teaspoons of cornstarch

Preparation of Sauce

In a bowl, whisk cornstarch with 1 tablespoon of cold water. Continuing to whisk combine soy sauce, remaining water, sugar, and sesame oil.

Preparation of Stir Fry

Freeze beef only until firm enough to slice into paper-thin slices (be sure to use a very sharp knife).
Put black beans into a strainer and briefly rinse under cold water, then lightly salt. Place beans into a small bowl and mash with a fork.
Peel onion & cut into 6 wedges. Cut broccoli into bite-sized pieces and add to salted boiling water for 2 minutes and drain broccoli.

Heat wok and be sure that it is very hot, add 1 tablespoon of peanut oil, swirl to coat wok surface.
Stir fry onion for one minute, then add broccoli and cook for one more minute. Remove broccoli and onion and put aside.

Add 2 tablespoons of peanut oil to the hot wok, add ginger and beef then stir-fry over high heat. Make sure that the beef loses all of it's redness. Add mashed black beans and continue frying while stirring for one minute. Add sauce mixture and reduce heat to a simmer and cook for 2 minutes while stirring. Add broccoli and onions and toss together until food reaches a uniform temperature.

Remove from wok and immediately serve over white rice.

Enjoy your meal!