Okay so, I have a confession to make: when it comes to making anything from any Asian cuisine other than plain rice (and even then, I use a rice cooker..), I am definitely challenged. When I decided to try this recipe I knew there was already a pretty big chance of failure. I didn’t let that stop me though, and I’m so glad I didn’t!
I’ve tried to make curries, stir fry’s, noodle dishes, soups and all sorts of rolls… they’ve never really come out more than just meh. If they’re actually good, they’re so different from what you might get in an authentic restaurant (well, American authentic…) that it doesn’t really count. This recipe has changed that and I can now say that I can make one Chinese recipe 🙂
My weekly shop consisted of about a kilo of flank steaks, which I used for Chipotle & lime steaks earlier on this week. Much to my dismay, the meat was tough as shoe leather – I had to pulse it through the mixer once grilled to make it edible enough for the tacos! (Tesco…first and last time grocery shopping from there…). Knowing that I had the same tough-as-nails beef steaks marinating for tonight’s dinner, I figured the safest best would be to try cooking them in the slow cooker instead of stovetop. Let’s just say that I made the right call on that one! The beef turned out juicy and tender, full of rich flavors which produced an amazing sauce. If you don’t have time for the slow cooker, then just make sure you get a decent-quality meat for this and cook it up in the wok! It should still come out delicious, and all comes together in about 15 minutes.
What are some of your most challenging dishes to make? I’d love to hear about them in the comments section!
Bon appetit !
- 200 grams of flank steak, thinly sliced
- 2 cups of broccoli florets
- Marinade
- 1 teaspoon of baking soda*
- 1 teaspoon of sugar
- 1 tablespoon of cornstarch
- 2 tablespoons of soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
- ¼ cup of water
- Combine all of the ingredients for the marinade until evenly mixed directly into the crock pot, then mix in the sliced flank steak.
- Cook on low for 8-10 hours.
- Once your beef is almost done, steam or boil your broccoli for around 2 minutes. Don’t overcook unless you like mushy broccoli!
- Drain the broccoli, then heat a teaspoon of vegetable oil on high heat in your wok.
- Add the broccoli to the wok and cook for about a minute, then add in the meat and stir until the broccoli is coated with the sauce.
- Serve immediately over rice
Absolutely loved this!!
I messed up somehow, I tried to triple the recipe because I had 3x’s the amount of meat, but apparently when I set it for 10 hours and came home from work I had a charred topping on the meat and a funky taste, it wasn’t salvageable, I’m not sure where else I would’ve done wrong maybe I shouldn’t have tripled the baking soda? I’m so bad at this! I suck at making Asian food.
Oh no!! I’m really surprised that it came out charred though — that’s never happened to me in a crockpot!! Did you set it to low or high?? For 10 hours, it would definitely need to be on low. I hope you didn’t have to throw away the food, though. If you still have the meat, then I can give you a few suggestions on how to salvage it!