Celery is the point here as much as the beef. It goes in last and stays crisp, so the dish has a crunch against the soft marinated slices. The marinade is equal spoons of cornstarch, Shaoxing wine, oil and soy, which is enough to velvet 300 g of beef without turning it into a slurry.
Sichuan · Main
Celery and Beef Stir Fry With a Cornstarch Marinade
Sliced beef gets four tablespoons of marinade and ten minutes, then hits a smoking wok with celery and a fistful of chillies for a stir fry that finishes in three minutes.
- Prep20 min
- Cook8 min
- Serves3
- LevelEasy
Ingredients
| 300 g | beef , sliced thin against the grain |
| 150 g | celery , cut into short lengths |
| 7 | bird's eye chillies , chopped |
| 1/2 | long green pepper , sliced |
| 4 stalks | coriander , cut into segments |
| 1 tbsp | cornstarch , for the marinade |
| 1 tbsp | Shaoxing wine , for the marinade |
| 1 tbsp | rapeseed oil , for the marinade |
| 1 tbsp | light soy sauce , for the marinade |
| 40 ml | rapeseed oil , for the wok |
| 1 tbsp | light soy sauce , to finish |
Method
- Slice the beef thin across the fibres, then mix it with the cornstarch, wine, oil and the first spoon of soy. Leave it for at least ten minutes.
- Cut the celery into pieces about the length of your thumb. Keep the leaves if they are tender.
- Heat the wok until it just begins to smoke, then add the 40 ml of rapeseed oil and swirl it around the sides.
- Tip in the beef and spread it out. Leave it for twenty seconds before you start turning, so it takes colour instead of steaming.
- When the beef has lost its pink, add the chillies and the green pepper and stir for thirty seconds.
- Add the celery and keep everything moving over high heat until the celery is hot through but still snaps, about a minute and a half.
- Add the coriander and the last spoon of soy, toss twice and take the wok off the heat.
Notes
- Slice across the grain, not along it. The difference between a tender stir fry and a chewy one is the direction of the knife, not the marinade.
- Have everything cut and within reach before the wok goes on. From the beef going in to the plate is under three minutes.
- If you cannot take the heat, use three chillies and keep the seeds out; the celery and coriander still carry the dish.
Ratios and technique checked against 薯条沾腐乳 on Douguo (芹菜炒牛肉). The method here is written by Stellaok; the photograph is the source kitchen's, credited on the image above and linked back to the page it came from. No recipe text is reproduced.