Pepper Steak
Preamble
Today I’m going to teach you how to cook one of my personal favorite dishes, pepper steak. The name is a lie, because there are actually no peppers in it, only celery. My mom made this for us when I was growing up, but since I live in a family of picky eaters she was afraid that no one would eat it with pepper in there, so used celery instead. First, you need a kitchen that is clean, or a reasonable approximation of one that is clean enough to fool the camera for the pictures you’ll be taking as evidence. Next we will require the ingredients you are actually going to cook.
Ingredients
This is an incredibly simple dish, so doesn’t require anything more than:
- a pound of beef round steak
- celery
- a white onion
- (3) bullion cubes
- Worcestershire sauce
- soy sauce
- vegetable oil
- rice
You will have more success cooking when you have something to cook in.
Method
While you’re cooking, I strongly recommend marinating yourself.
I swear I generally drink better beer than Bud Light. (Just look on top of my cabinets.) Slice your steak and cut your vegetables in to pan-cookable pieces.
Add vegetable oil to your pan. You want just enough to cover the bottom.
You know it’s hot enough once it has caught on fire. Unfortunately, I failed to notice that whoever used my pan last didn’t bother to clean the sides very well, leaving some crud caked on that actually caught on fire causing the oil to ignite. Luckily, my quick thinking saved me. I yanked the pan off the stove, ran with it over to the sink and smothered it quickly with water. Had I actually performed those steps, I probably would have bigger things to worry about than posting this, such as my place of residence being smoldering rubble. You want to kill the source of ignition and then smother the fire. I used the pan’s lid. All that happened was a lot smoke.
and one slightly fucked pan
So, giving it a second shot with another pan
Go ahead and add the beef to the hot oil first, being careful to splatter as much grease as possible on to your shirt and in to your eyes. Half cook the beef, and then toss in the veggies. Cook on high, getting the red out. From
To
Note the deliciousness. Next you want to add about two cups of water for a broth. Bring this to a gentle boil. Now, add two or three bullion cubes, a good amount of soy sauce, probably about ¾ of an ounce to an ounce, and then a couple dashes of Worcestershire sauce. You want to make sure that this dish gives you your entire recommended daily value of sodium.
Reduce heat on the pepper steak, cover, and simmer. At some point directly before this you should’ve started preparing some rice. Since I lack all forms of rice cooker, I use an old fashioned sauce pan. Add two cups of water, bring to boil, add a cup of rice, stir things around for a second, cover with a lid, reduce to low heat. Now while the rice cooks and the steak simmers we wait about 15-20 minutes.
This is the easiest part. Turn off the stove, get a plate and as much as you care to eat.
Minus the kitchen fire (which is a first for me!), it turned out delicious. Try it out, report your results. Enjoy your hot lunch!
