Guest Post by Whisks & Ruffles: Beef with Black Pepper Sauce

Good morning friends!

As this post goes live, it is currently 7PM on Wednesday in Asia and I am STILL on a plane.  Yep, I left just before 7AM on Tuesday (September 11th...still gets small gasps from people...) and will not arrive to my final destination in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia until nearly 10PM local time (10AM for those in the US Eastern Time Zone).  Aye!

So, while I'm gone, I have several guest posters that I will be featuring here on my site.  I am so extremely thankful for them to be helping me out with posting or I'm pretty sure I'd lose my mind.  I highly encourage you to check out their sites and hopefully you'll follow them regularly as I do, too.

My first guest poster is Angelina of Whisks & Ruffles.  Though she's new to blogging, you can tell she's dedicated to her nurturing her blog because she invested in a custom domain name AND a received a new DSLR to take those beautiful photos that make you drool on your keyboard. A couple of  recipes I would love to try sometime are her Korean Samgyeopsal (Pork Belly) with Ssam Jang (Soybean Past Dipping Sauce) and Pajori (Green Onion Salad) and Fancy 4-Cheese Mac and Cheese (omg am I sucker for a good mac and cheese!).

Angelina volunteered to guest post when I put out a request on my facebook fan page.  When I looked at her profile on facebook, I realized we had a mutual real-life friend in common.  She went to college with my good friend Jackie.  But that's not all we have in common, as you'll see from her introduction below.

By the way, everything she says about growing up in an Asian household and trying to replicate "recipes" is totally true!  If you don't believe me, check out my post on Grandpa N's Char Siu Bao (Chinese BBQ Pork Buns) - See the theme with the recipes scrawled on tiny scraps of paper! - and family recipes tag to see my own (mis)adventures!

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Hello! This is Angelina from Whisks & Ruffles. Like Christine, I’m a twenty-something engineer by day and a cooking wife by night. I love to cook, bake, decorate, party plan, and anything wedding-related! Yes, I’m a newlywed and I just can’t help it! Head over to my site to read on my adventures!

Beef with Black Pepper Sauce

Growing up in an Asian household, I’m always in awe of what my mom whips up in the kitchen. It’s so hard to pin-point her recipes though, since she always seems to eye-ball the ingredients. Her food always tastes so amazing, and it’s difficult for me to replicate, because well… her eye-balling is not the same as my eye-balling I guess... but with time, I became wiser, and I learned. At least I’d like to think so!

Whenever I feel like an easy Asian stir-fry, I use the Beef with Black Pepper recipe I found on the Taiwan Center website as a guide. This recipe actually has been posted on my fridge door for quite some time, but whenever I feel like making this dish, I only use it to remind me of the ingredients, and I find myself eye-balling the amount of sauces I add in.

For my guest post at Christine’s Kitchen Chronicles, I attempted to pin-point my recipes, so that you readers can actually try this at home! As I added ingredients, I actually measured them and wrote them down. Finally, I updated the recipe on my fridge! Hooray!

Here’s the before and after recipes (pardon my Disney magnets)

Ingredients:

• ¾ - 1 Lbs. Beef
• 2 Tbsp. Chopped Garlic
• ½ Large Onion, sliced
• 1 Tbsp. Canola Oil
• 1 Broccoli Bunch

Beef Marinade (mix all together)

• 2 Tbsp. Soy Sauce
• ½ Tbsp. Sesame Oil
• 1 Tbsp. Corn Starch
• 1 tsp. Rice Vinegar

Black Pepper Sauce (mix all together):

• 3 Tbsp. Oyster Sauce
• 2 tsp. Sugar
• 4 Tbsp. Water
• 2 Tbsp. Soy Sauce
• 1 Tbsp. Freshly Ground Black Pepper (use less if you don’t like your food spicy!)

Directions:

Marinade the beef for about 30 minutes using the marinade recipe above. I used “beef hanging tenders” that’s already pre-sliced, but you can slice your own beef sirloin.

Cut up broccoli and steam. Set aside.

In a large wok, heat up canola oil and toss in chopped garlic and onion. Stir until onions are starting  to brown and garlic becomes fragrant, about 2 minutes.

Introduce the marinated beef and stir-fry for about 3 minutes, until beef is half-cooked.

Pour in the Black Pepper Sauce, and continue to stir-fry for another 3 minutes, until beef is fully cooked.

Serve beef on top of a bed of steamed broccoli from step #2. You can also use Chinese Broccoli (Gai-Lan) or Bok Choy. If you don’t feel like eating veggies you can also skip this part.

I ate my Beef with Black Pepper with a bowl of steamed rice. Delish!

Thank you Christine for letting me guest-post on your blog!

When I ran across the street to buy my last-minute much-needed oyster sauce from a local grocery, I saw some corn on sale, and it reminds me of your Creamed Corn! I wish summer never went away, but Ican’t wait to try this recipe and reminisce the good summer days…

Xo,
Angelina