For today’s meal, we’re making pepper steak, a recipe I’ve made a dozen or so times now and keep tweaking and adjusting along the way, in the continual search of an ideal version.
I originally went looking for a pepper steak recipe chasing a meal I hadn’t had in two years and around two-thousand miles. My stepmom made pepper steak as one of a small handful of rotating meals, the five or six recipes she could throw together reliably every week or two, without consulting anything but memory for measurements. These recipes were all fairly similar, in that they involved a meal that could be thrown together and left to cook for very long periods without much supervision.
The recipe I remembered tasted better in memory than actuality. It recalled comfort and consistency, something savory and filling that could be counted on to satisfy. In having had it since, it was at least that, but also at most that, not striving for much in the way of variety or personality. It was bland in flavor and color and effort and I wanted something more.
In looking for the recipe, being unable to find it and always seeming to lose it upon asking for it, I stumbled upon this one, from Ali at Gimme Some Oven. Where the meal I’ve had previously was good, if bland, this recipe adds heartier umami, more tangs of sour and sweet, and in being prepared actively rather than passively, doesn’t let the flavors disappear into a thin, watery soup but congeal into a marinade that becomes a complementary sauce, binding the flavors and textures together.
Working to move beyond the safe bounds of memory has forced me to venture further and to grow in that effort.
In that growth, I’ve also worked to experiment and try new techniques and patterns in preparing the recipe. I’ve adjusted volumes, tried different ingredients, cuts, and textures. In so doing, I’ve learned not just how to cook this recipe, but how to make it my own, which has leveled up my cooking overall.
A brief aside about onions (I’d put this in a footnote, but I don’t believe this WordPress theme supports them):
For a long time (too long, to be honest) I worked as a pizza delivery driver. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the job. Loved the pseudo-independence of it, the time spent driving around town, listening to the radio, being paid to wander from place to place, bringing people sustenance in a snap, and being paid for it too. It was independent enough to be freeing, and yet tethered enough to provide structure to a day. It benefitted thinking laterally and longitudinally, structuring actions in beneficial ways to increase my personal profits and efficiency. In short, it rewarded trying harder in an easily measurable way, while allowing enough freedom, in action and space, that it was easy to keep coming back to work.
I started delivering pizza in college and continued between degrees, making enough to exist on but not enough to live on. Because my schedule wasn’t tied too tightly anywhere else, I also worked opening shifts, making and delivering lunch to the schools within our delivery area. What this also meant is that I worked handling morning prep. And this is where my relationship with onions began.
Generally, I like onions. They add a great depth and body to food, filling in the flavors of protein with complementary textures and tastes. Onions are great on or in most dishes and I enjoy eating them. Preparing them, however, just wrecks me.
I’ve got the genetic makeup to not only cry at onions but leak. My eyes water to the point of blindness, forcing me to continually step back and away from the task, escaping the source of irrigational irritation. Some are better, some are worse, but all set my eyes to burn and water eventually.
The experience is bad enough that I’d often trade all the rest of the morning preparation of the store with my delivery partner to avoid cutting onions. In the rare occasions I couldn’t, I would have to take breaks at the task regularly to walk away from the cutting table, to escape the cloud of oils or vapors or whatever it is that they aerosolized upon being sliced and diced. Often I’d have to step into the large walk-in cooler, letting the circulating cold air dry my eyes and soothe the burning sting.
And yet, I can’t help myself but include them in just about any dish that will take them, stepping into the fray, knife in hand. I was reminded of these days of deliveries past while making pepper steak this weekend. The recipe calls for green onions, however any variety will do. But in preparing them for the meal, my eyes watered and burned like they haven’t in years, since the cutting days of my youth. Several times I had to line up cuts through eyes squinted to slits, carefully cutting green onion stems and avoiding fingertips. What I wouldn’t have given for a walk-in to walk into, a few moments of cool to evaporate the sting.
In some way I must enjoy that pain, that work of suffering for the joy of consumption. It doesn’t stop me from reaching for onions at the store, or for the knife to prepare them, each time I move myself to cook.
Anyhow:
One of the ways I’ve grown is through repeating recipes and experimenting with new techniques or ingredients or flavors. For instance, when I started making pepper steak, I also had a pot beside cooking rice. The rice, which should be the simplest part of the whole recipe, often became the worst and most inconsistent. It would burn, or end up too dry, or too moist. It would stick to the bottom of the pot, it would burn into a hard layer I’d end up soaking overnight in the sink. It never came out well.
And then I got an Instant Pot.
Now my method involves measuring out and rinsing 2-3 cups of rice, adding them to the Instant Pot with an equal measure of water, closing the lid, and hitting one button. From an inconsistent, constantly tended, never perfected dish, I’ve now achieved consistent quality results.
If you don’t have an Instant Pot by now, I’m assuming people figure you don’t cook or aren’t seeing the same sales each Holiday season that I am. Do yourself a favor and pick one up for yourself. 6 quarts is probably the right size, but size up or down depending on how many mouths you’re feeding or what you want to do with it. The thing has a billion uses.
(Oh, and if you use the link above, they kick me a couple bucks. No pressure. 🥁)
If you use an Instant Pot, get the rice going before you start cutting vegetables up. While using it is more consistent, easier, and way less work, it’s not really faster (which is the normal reason people turn to a pressure cooker). And to really get the rice to come out right, you want to let the pot depressurize on its own rather than opening the valve manually. I’ve found that letting the pressure bleed off naturally lessens the chances the rice sticks to the pot.
So: chop up your peppers and onions and sauté until softened but not floppy with a bit of salt and freshly ground pepper. You’ll want a little body left in them as A) They’re going to hang out for a bit while the meat cooks and B) you’re still going to cook some garlic (and maybe ginger) in here. Open up a little space in the center, add your garlic (I like rather more garlic than the recipe calls for) and cook for a bit separately. Then mix with the peppers and onions to combine.
Over time, I’ve gone from peeling and mincing fresh ginger, to buying ginger puree, to just using ginger powder. The ratio that works is about 1/4 tsp dried to 1 tbsp fresh.
Is fresh better? I mean, probably, but I don’t much notice the difference. You do you, though. I mix the ginger powder into the marinade after draining (which we’ll get to in a moment) and then it becomes part of the sauce at the conclusion.
Once the veggies are cooked, remove them into a heat-tolerant vessel (a metal mixing bowl works just fine) and then start cooking your steak. Over time I’ve tried a number of cuts and usually opt for sirloin, but that’s usually because A) flank steak is pricier and B) has been harder to find lately. Flank’s better, but whatever works. The thing to keep in mind is that you’re going to marinade the meat for a while beforehand, so you can use something a bit tougher, and you’re going to slice it thin and cook quickly, so you aren’t looking for a high-quality steak meat here. You want something with some toughness to break down and that will slice into forkable cuts.
One lesson I’ve learned over time is that draining the meat well before cooking will really improve the consistency. You’re going to cook in batches, and after each batch, a bit of the fond is left behind. Unlike other dishes, you really don’t have anything to deglaze the pan, and, because there’s cornstarch in the marinade, it has a tendency to stiffen into a mass that turns into chewy bits in the dish. To avoid this, reduce the overall amount of liquid cooking alongside the meat by draining. Once you’ve got the marinade drained off, toss that dried ginger in there and mix up a bit before cooking after the meat.
Cook in batches. It won’t take long to cook these strips up, but if you crowd the pan, they won’t cook nearly as well and you’ll end up with inconsistent finishes. Unless you’ve got a wok or something, which, if so, go nuts.
Once all the meat’s cooked, toss the sauce into the pan and heat to bubbling for a few minutes. Remember, this previously housed raw meat. You probably want to cook it a little.
Finally, toss in your green onion tops if you went that route and salt and pepper to taste. I also like to toss in about a tablespoon of sesame seeds. If I were fancier I’d toast them first, but meh. They do fine right out of the jar.
Serve over rice and chow down. You’ll probably have 4-5 normal-person servings and it reheats well for lunch the next day. Not an awful lot of work, with the slicing and marinade prep being done beforehand and the veggies only needing a little prep.
Finding this recipe started from trying to grasp at the past and resulted in creating my own experience. It allowed me to grow and evolve my techniques and abilities, developing my own version of the recipe as I learned. And it has given me the confidence to attempt new things, safe in my experience that, regardless of the outcome, it was worth making the effort to try.
