Sunday, 6/13/2010

The recipe we followed tonight is simply called "Ground Beef and Green Beans". One of Ben's mom's friends, Bev, gave us a copy of the recipe. It is similar to one dish we ordered at Mandarin Cove in Portland, OR, a couple weeks ago.

Tonight is the first time we have made this dish without setting off our smoke detector. Something about cooking oil in the skillet on high has always made our alarm go off. It has really freaked Katie out in the past; so, this time, Ben took the battery out of the detector before we started to cook. Cooking the meal was much less stressful this time around. I wrote "take out smoke detector battery" on the recipe:)

GROUND BEEF AND GREEN BEANS
from a cookbook called "Recipes I Have Known and Loved"

Sauce:
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/3 cup cooled broth
1 tablespoon reduced-sodium soy sauce (we always used regular soy sauce)
1 tablespoon dry sherry
1 teaspoon cider vinegar

Main ingredients:
1 tablespoon oil
1 pound green beans, trimmed and sliced diagonally into 2-inch lengths
2 teaspoons finely minced fresh ginger
2 teaspoons finely minced garlic (2 large cloves)
1 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes (the original recipe called for 1/2 teaspoon...not enough!)
1/2 pound lean ground beef

Instructions:
1. In a small bowl, combine all the sauce ingredients. Make sure the cornstarch is completely dissolved. Set the mixture aside.
2. In a wok or large skillet, heat the oil for 30 seconds over high heat, and add the green beans. Stir-fry the green beans for about 4 minutes-the beans should be tender-crisp and lightly charred in spots. Remove the green beans with a slotted spoon, and set them aside.
3. Add the ginger and garlic to the pan, cook them for 30 seconds, and then add the pepper flakes and beef, crumbling the meat with a spatula. Stir-fry the mixture just until the beef loses its pinkness. Drain off all the excess fat from the pan.
4. Stir the reserved sauce once more, and add it to the meat. Cook the mixture, stirring it, for a few minutes until the sauce thickens. Fold in the reserved green beans, heat the mixture for 1 minute, and serve.

I was a little short on green beans, since I used them for the General Tsao's chicken earlier in the week. So, we ended up using a full pound of ground beef. I thought that the reduction in beans would offset the increase in ground beef. Turns out, I needed to have made 50% more sauce for these proportions. It was still tasty, but could have been a little bit better.