Beef with Snow Peas

Tonight I took 3/4 lb. of flank stake, cut while still half frozen against the grain into thin slices and dusted with cornstarch, stir-fried it with some snow peas (about the same volume as the meat, though weighing less), garlic, ginger, one small red bell pepper, one small hot pepper (a serrano will work), and some scallions and soy-sauce and white vinegar. Everything was perfectly cooked, nothing mushy. This was a perfect dinner for two, served with white rice. Greens, browns, reds, and greens on a white background.

If you eat this in a Chinese restaurant, it will have more sauce to it, be a bit less garlicky and spicy. Unless it is a very good restaurant outside the midwest, mine will be much tastier. Since I don't have a decent wok, I used a frying pan and cooked the meat first, then added it back to the pan when the rest of the dish was done.

I don't have exact proportions or cooking times for you. Basically you have to know how long things need to cook and when to add various ingredients. Generally I can cut up everything for the stir-fry and cook it up in about the time it takes the rice to cook.

For pastas and stirfries, the general rule is you want to have things about the same size. The strips of meat are about the size of the snow peas, for example. For a pasta primavera with penne, you want to cut up the zucchini or bell peppers about the same same size and shape as the penne or ziti or farfalle.