Beef and Broccoli Stir Fry

Beef and broccoli stir fry is one of the most flavourful Chinese take-out food items on the menu, and it’s actually pretty easy to make. The tender slices of beef in combination with the broccoli florets that burst with umami flavours in every bite is to die for.

When I used to work as a server at a fast food Chinese restaurant in a mall, one of the most commonly requested dishes was beef and broccoli stir fry (even though that wasn’t on the menu). After learning this recipe, you won’t need to go back to Chinese take-out beef and broccoli, because this tastes just as good!

Ingredients

• Beef Sirloin – This is on the cheaper side for cuts of beef. Believe it or not, there’s a low-cost, foolproof way to make this cheap cut of beef super tender and juicy. Chinese restaurants use this same method, which I’ll explain later in this post.
• Baking Soda – This is the magic ingredient that will transform your cheap cut of beef from tough to tender. 
• Soy sauce
• Oyster sauce – This adds umami / savoriness, saltiness, and sweetness to a dish. 
• Cornstarch – This is a common ingredient in Chinese stir-fries in marinades and sauces. When added to marinade, it acts as a moisture barrier to retain more of the moisture in the meat during cooking, so the meat ends up being juicy. It also functions as a thickener for the sauce.
• Oil – Added for not only frying but also to keep the slices of beef from sticking to each other.
• White pepper – This is essentially the black pepper of Chinese cooking. I’d say it’s a staple spice in our household. It adds a bit of a kick like black pepper does but also earthiness.
• Sesame oil – This will add a strong toasty, nutty aroma and flavour. For good quality sesame oil with great flavour, look for one that is dark brown and contains some sesame sediment. 
• Rice wine –  I use shaoxing wine because it’s the go-to cooking wine in Chinese cuisine. It adds some nutty flavours to your dish. However, if I’m out of shaoxing wine, I’ll use sake. Either way, they will work the same in terms of deglazing, although their flavours are different. 
• Aromatics (garlic, onions & ginger) – Aromatics like garlic, onions and ginger enhances the flavour of beef and are commonly used in other stir fries as well.

How to Make Beef and Broccoli Stir Fry

When slicing the beef sirloin, make sure to slice against the grain. This will help make the beef tender after stir-frying. When you slice beef against the grain, you are breaking off the muscle fibers with a knife so you don’t have to do it with your teeth when chewing.

To make our cheap cut of beef super tender and juicy, we’ll be using a cheat in Chinese cooking called velveting. In this process, we’ll first rub the sliced beef with baking soda and let it rest in the fridge for an hour.

Baking soda will increase the pH of the beef, and basically break down and loosen up the proteins. The beef then reacts differently during cooking and retains its moisture more. This results in beef that is more tender and juicy. 

Then, we’ll want to wash off all the baking soda off the beef so that we don’t get the taste of baking soda in our final dish.

Pat dry the beef slices with paper towel so that the beef will be able to brown during stir-frying.

Since we want our beef to be extra tender, we will use the other method of velveting as well. We’ll mix our beef with cornstarch, oyster sauce, soy sauce, white pepper and oil. The key ingredient in this method of velveting is cornstarch. Cornstarch will act as a moisture barrier so that it keeps all the moisture sealed within the slices of beef.

We want to partially cook the broccoli first before using it in a stir-fry. Blanch the broccoli for 2 minutes and then drain them with a colander and set it aside.

Mix all of the sauce ingredients together in a small bowl.

Pan-fry the beef until it is nicely browned. The Maillard browning reactions will enhance the flavour of the beef. Set the beef aside.

Next, in the same pan with the browned bits from the beef (we’ll be keeping these for extra flavour), pan-fry the aromatics by first cooking the onions until they are translucent and slightly browned and then add the garlic and ginger and fry them until fragrant. 

Stir in the cooked beef and broccoli and then rice wine and sesame oil. The rice wine will be used to released the browned bits from the bottom of the pan, so they will be dispersed throughout the dish to add more flavour. This process is called deglazing.

Give the sauce ingredients a good stir before adding it to the pan. Pour the sauce into the pan and stir constantly until the sauce thickens and the beef and broccoli is coated in the flavourful sauce.