Beef Stir-Fry Recipe Perfect for Feeding a Houseful of Holiday Guests
Get ready to serve extra helpings of this beef tenderloin and mixed veggie stir-fry. Photo: Jeff O’Heir
This beef with vegetable stir-fry recipe is the holy grail for home cooks: it yields enough to feed a large family for a few nights, a bunch of roommates, or a small army; everyone loves it; and it’s pretty easy to make.
I was in the middle of cooking up a batch last weekend when my brother called to say he was swinging by with his 9- and 11-year-old daughters. Both are picky eaters. “They won’t eat much of that,” he said. “Just give them a little.” They plowed through three plates each — “extra sauce and extra meat, please” — before calling it quits. The request was surprising since both of the girls, as well as my own daughter and wife, steer more toward vegetarian dishes. They all put principle aside for a few helpings of this stir-fry.
The key to this recipe is the marinade. It includes many of the basic ingredients — soy sauce, fish sauce, garlic and fresh ginger — that make up the foundation of dozens stir fry recipes. I add fresh lime juice and some sherry for extra depth and to complement the peppery, lemony flavors of the fresh ginger. Use the reserved marinade to finish off the vegetables in the wok.
For the meat I use a whole, trimmed beef tenderloin. They typically weigh between five and seven pounds and are often on sale for about $7.99 a pound. It’s naturally tender and, when sliced into roughly one-inch pieces, nicely absorbs the marinade while soaking for about two hours. The deeply infused Asian flavors strike a satisfying balance between the familiar and exotic.
This dish is incredibly flexible. A variety of combinations work. (Photo: Jeff O’Heir.)
Another beauty of this dish is its flexibility. You can use pork or chicken, alter the ingredients of the marinade for taste and volume, and use a variety of vegetables. Any combination of green and red peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, onions, and celery works.
There’s a lot of basic slicing and chopping involved with this recipe, but it gets easier once you establish a rhythm. Make sure to have all your ingredients ready to go once the wok is fired up. The end result — a nutritious, delicious dinner with plenty of leftovers that people actually look forward to — will be worth the effort.
Beef Tenderloin Stir-Fry with Mixed Vegetables
1 beef tenderloin, about six pounds. Most butchers will trim it for free. Here are a few tips if you want to spend the five minutes or so doing it yourself.
Marinade (here’s a good guide to marinades)
2 tablespoons sesame oil
4 tablespoons peanut oil or other neutral oil with a high smoke point (reserve about ¼ cup for frying)
4 tablespoons finely chopped garlic (eight to 10 medium cloves, depending on size and taste)
4 tablespoons grated ginger (about a four-inch piece, peeled)
20 ounces light soy sauce (two 10-ounce bottles)
1 ½ cups water
Juice from one lime
2 tablespoons fish sauce
4 tablespoons sherry, sake or Shaoxing wine
Vegetables (Use whatever’s on sale, in season, sitting in the crisper, or suits your taste.)
Four to six carrots
Two red peppers
Two green peppers
Four celery stocks
Four medium onions
One head of broccoli
One head of cauliflower
Prepare the marinade. Add oils to medium saucepan and heat over medium-low burner. Add garlic and ginger and sauté for about eight minutes, occasionally stirring and scraping the bottom of the pan. Add the remaining liquids and stir. Bring to a boil for about 30 seconds and lower to a simmer, gently reducing liquid for about 45 minutes. This concentrates the flavors. Remove from heat and let cool.
While the marinade simmers, cut the tenderloin into roughly one-inch pieces. Place pieces in a sealable plastic bag or bowl and cover meat (about two cups) with the cooled marinade. Refrigerate for about two hours.
While the meat marinates, chop the peppers, carrots, celery, and onions into uniform ¼-inch pieces and combine in a large bowl. Remove broccoli and cauliflower florets from the stock and cut into inch-long pieces. Cut the usable stocks into medallions, about 1/8-inch thick. Combine florets and medallions in a large bowl.
Preheat the wok until it’s very hot; a drop of oil should smoke slightly. Add about a tablespoon of oil to the wok and begin frying the mixed vegetables, about two cups at a time. Don’t crowd the veggies. Frequently flip the vegetables (watch how the cooks at your favorite Chinese takeout do it) and cook for about three minutes. Add a splash of reserved marinade and cook for another 30 seconds. The vegetables should have some firmness since they’ll continue cooking after they’re removed from heat.
Dump the first batch in a large container (a 1.3 gallon or 12-cup plastic container is perfect) and repeat the same cooking process with the other ingredients. Alternate between the mixed vegetables, the broccoli and cauliflower (I cook these separately because they require just a bit more oil in the wok), and the meat. Discard unused meat marinade. During the process, occasionally mix the finished stir-fry in the container for an even distribution of ingredients. Serve with rice.
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