Sugar Peas and Beef

House of Rice 1973

• Sugar peas...a bunch
• 1 lb. very thinly sliced beef
• 1 Can sliced water chestnuts
• 2 dried or fresh shitake mushrooms finely sliced (rehydrate mushrooms and use water for the sauce)2-3 T Cooking Sherry or Miren
• 3 T Corn starch
• 3 T sugar
• 1/4 C Light Soy Sauce
• 1/4-1/2 C Water
• Oil for Wok

1. Either buy “sukiyaki beef” or slice your own as thin as possible. You’ll need a very sharp knife and it helps to keep the beef partially frozen. Slice as thin as possible (1/32” or less)
2. Marinate the beef in a bowl with cooking sherry, cornstarch and soy sauce for 30 minutes to 4 hours. Adjust the liquid as required to moisten all the meat. Don’t go too heavy on the sherry. The light soy helps keep down the sodium. Depending on the amount of soy (salt) you probably won’t need any extra salt
3. Cook the beef in a hot wok with 2-3 T of preheated oil. Takes 4-5 minutes. Remove meat from the heat and set aside.
4. Scrape out residual from the wok along with the meat. It will dissolve into the sauce a bit later
5. Preheat another 3 T of oil in the wok and quickly stir fry cleaned peas, mushrooms (add them a bit later so they don’t burn) and water chestnuts. Cook the peas only until they become bright green.
6. Quickly add meat mixture and water. The water will form a light sauce with the marinade ingredients. Watch the viscosity of the sauce in the bottom of the wok and add water as required or allow to reduce being careful to not overcook the peas. (bright green)
7. It’s important to have all of your ingredients ready at hand...mis en place. The cooking of the vegetables and reheating of the meat just takes about 5 minutes.
8. Serve with rice.