Beef with Sweet Green Peppers and Onions - Stir Fry!

Since this was Aaron's recipe I'll leave this entry for him to fill :D

From Pepper Beef and Cucumbers

Ingredients:
Beef, celery, sweet pepper, onions, garlic, chilli peppers.

Preparation:
Marinate beef with some soy sauce and pepper and a little bit of vinegar overnight. This gives the beef some flavor on the inside and tenderizes it.

Cooking:
Wok optional, but I like it. Since I will be stirfrying it, and everything is going into the same wok, preparation is key. I wanted larger strips of beef, so I cut the strips fairly large across the grain. I also wanted the end result to be tender beef, so my first constraint is that I cannot cook the beef with too high a heat or for too long. My second constraint is the celery. I can't cook them as long as the beef or they'll be soft. I don't want them too raw either, because then they will not soak up much flavor and have a raw taste that will not go too well with the rest of the dish. I also chopped up a whole onion, some garlic, and diced some chillies super tiny. Now everything was ready to go.

Heat wok until coating smokes a little, then hit it with some oil and swirl it around, baking a new coating into the opened pores. First, onion, then garlic. A little salt and pepper. Exhaust fan on coz it's gonna get hot in here! Next, the beef. Brown the outsides a little, then lower the heat to simmer. I wanted to cook this slow. I covered the wok to help the beef cook faster. When the beef was 70% cooked, I added some sauces/spices from the rack: sesame oil, dark soy sauce, fish sauce, black pepper, sugar. Tossed in the chillies, celery and peppers. Raised te heat, wok'd them around, then turned the heat back down.

With the low heat and being covered, the water from the onions and celery and pepper and beef started to come out. This is a good thing because we like sauce/gravy. But I wanted more gravy and thicken it a little so I mixed some corn starch with some water and then tossed it in. I made sure to add a little extra flavor earlier, in anticipation that I would add more water now and that some of the flavor would dissolve into the gravy. I let it simmer uncovered so the sauce could thicken and the flavors could meld. At the end, wok it a little more and fix up the flavors to taste. Serve hot over rice.