黑胡椒牛柳 Black Pepper Beef

Most restaurants and even Chinese cooking shows use Lee Kum Kee's or some other brand of black pepper sauce so I had a hard time finding recipes for the sauce from scratch, but this one is delicious and well worth the extra two seconds spent and several bucks saved.

After much searching I was finally able to see one being made from scratch. It was on one of those really ancient looking Chinese cooking shows. What I saw there was the base I needed to finally be able to come up with this recipe. Did I mention how DELICIOUS this is?

Black Pepper Beef

1 Lb. Beef Tenderloin or another tender lean cut of beef
1 Tbsp. freshly ground black pepper
5 cloves of garlic minced (at least)
2 Tbsp. Chinese cooking wine
1/2 onion cut in cut on angles
1 cup green and red pepper cut on angles

Beef Marinade
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 Tbsp. cooking wine
1 Tbsp. vegetable oil or sesame oil

1/4 cup starch

Black Pepper Sauce
1 Tbsp. soy sauce
2 Tbsp. Oyster sauce
1 Tbsp. Chinese black vinegar
2 Tbsp. sugar

2 tsp. starch mixed with 1 cup water

Dice the onion in to medium-large pieces and cut the bell pepper into diamond shapes as shown below. You can also just cut it into chunks for simplicity sake.

Tenderize the beef (the back of a clever works well for this) and slice thinly against the grain. This is easiest if  the beef is mostly frozen.

This is what a piece of beef should look like when cut across the grain. See all the lines in the meat. Being cut this way help the beef to be tender.

Mix soy sauce, cooking wine and oil with the beef and let it marinate for 30 minutes.

After it is done marinating mix in the starch. 

Mix black pepper sauce ingredients and set aside. 

Heat 1/3 cup oil over medium to medium high heat. Once the oil is deep-frying temperature (about 375 F) Add onions and bell peppers and cook approximately 1 minute, keeping the food moving constantly, or until they start to soften but are still very crispy.

Remove from the oil and set aside on some paper towel to drain. 

Add the beef to the oil in 2-3 batches. Stir-fry beef pieces, stirring constantly so the pieces separate from each other. Cook until no longer pink.

Remove to a paper towel to drain then clean out your wok. 

Heat 2 Tbsp. oil and fry garlic and peppers until fragrant, then add the black pepper sauce ingredients and stir-fry (a few seconds).

 Deglase the pan with 2 Tbsp. cooking wine then add beef and stir fry a few seconds.  

Pour in the cornstarch water mixture and stir constantly until thickened then add vegetables back in. Season with salt to taste if needed.

Serve with sticky rice. So delicious, I hope you all try it.

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