Baby Bok Choy with Beef
This recipe calls for beef tenderloin, which sells for a price beyond rubies.
I mean, a girl could buy herself a perfectly good, great big old marbled ribeye steak for $5.99 a pound and enjoy a dinner of beefy, meaty wonderfulness. But tenderloin? My local market was selling it for a whopping $17.99 per pound. And the aforementioned recipe called for a full pound. $18.00 for two little hunks of beef! It was enough to knock me over onto the floor of the meat department, twitching in a pool of my own frugality.
Plus, my former butcher of a husband twitches in his own pool of meaty-knowledgeableness when he sees me, on the rare occasion, slicing up a perfectly good tenderloin to use in a stir fry instead of grilling it up and eating it whole, very slowly, savoring every bite.
But I wanted something really tender because I was going to go straight home and cook it up, no marinating involved. And tenderloin has the word 'tender' right there in its title so you know it would fit the bill. So I stood there thinking about how we rarely go out for dinner (ordinarily, I'd rather cook) and so, why not splurge this one time?
I circled my shopping cart through the meat department at least four times, just like I was casing the joint (and I was) -- I think I made the butcher nervous even though he has all those knives to protect himself and his meat -- before finally placing a package in my cart right there where you'd ordinarily put your kid for safekeeping, which is right were you should keep tenderloin because oh my god, $18 a pound! How many children do you know that have sold for $18 a pound?
I almost made it to the baking and spices aisle before my frugal nature got the better of me and I arc-ed back to the meat department and replaced the package on its hallowed place on the shelf. That really made the butcher nervous. After I left, he probably went and pulled it off the shelf, certain I must have done something poisonous to it.
I went straight home and put some moose or elk (I can't tell the difference -- my husband, he goes out in the woods and tromps around and he brings it home and it's all the same to me) in the fridge to marinate overnight.
Was it tender?
Oh yeah.
The marinade has sherry and sesame oil and sugar and soy sauce. There's baby bok choy. The stir fry has its own saucy ingredients -- more sherry and soy sauce plus balsamic vinegar, freshly-grated ginger, and garlic. Mm. Mm. Mm.
The original recipe is linked to above and is a little more complicated, not to mention more fattening, than my version below. The original calls for deep-frying the beef in oil and blanching the bok choy before stir-frying. I did blanch the bok choy as directed by the recipe but decided it would have been much better without that step because the bok choy was a little too limp by the time the beef was done.
Here's my simpler version:
Bok Choy with Beef
Serves four
1 (1-lb) piece beef tenderloin, if you're made of money, otherwise use venison if you have it, or flank steak would also be nice, maybe some sirloin
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon medium-dry Sherry
1 1/2 teaspoons Asian sesame oil
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 1/2 lb baby bok choy
2 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons medium-dry Sherry
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
3T olive oil or sesame oil
1 1/2 tablespoons minced garlic
1 tablespoon minced peeled fresh ginger
Accompaniment: rice
Cut meat crosswise (across the grain) into 1/4-inch-thick slices, then cut slices into 1/2-inch-wide strips.
Make marinade and marinate meat: Stir together marinade ingredients in a medium bowl until sugar is dissolved.
Add meat, tossing to coat, and marinate overnight.
Stir together soy sauce, Sherry, and vinegar.
Heat oil in skillet over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking, then stir-fry garlic and ginger until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add beef, soy mixture, and bok choy and stir-fry until sauce is simmering and beef is cooked to your desired doneness. Serve immediately, over rice if you'd like.
