Quick weeknight meal - Beef Teriyaki

When perusing cookbooks, magazines and websites for recipes, I tend to find myself drawn to Italian and Mexican-influenced dishes for some reason. Perhaps the fact that they tend to be coated in cheese has something to do with it.

I've been trying to broaden my cooking repertoire lately, and while thumbing through my trusty "America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook," found an Asian-inspired dish that looked tasty. It was also labeled "fast." That, of course, caught my eye. It wasn't labeled "will make your stove a mess," though. But my stove, oh, it was a mess when I was done. Something to do with popping oil and such leaves a stove all messy. Oh well, nothing a little stove cleaner and elbow grease can't fix. And, even though I overcooked the meat just a smidge, the dinner was still great. I even ate rice (a lot of it), and I'm not usually a fan of rice. Broadening my horizons folks, broadening my horizons. We ate it with some steamed broccoli, too, which is always a good side dish for Asian-beefy type dishes, in my opinion.

We give this recipe two thumbs up and will definitely be making it again.


Beef Teriyaki
From America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons mirin, sherry, or white wine
2 teaspoons grated ginger
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 teaspoon cornstarch
1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 pounds top blade steak, trimmed and sliced 1/4" thick (you can also used 1 1/2 pounds of flank steak if you can't find top blade steak)
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons sesame seeds, toasted
2 scallions, sliced thin

Whisk the soy sauce, sugar, mirin (sherry/wine), ginger, garlic, cornstarch, and red pepper flakes together and set aside.

Pat the meat dry with paper towels, then season with salt and pepper. Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat until just smoking. Brown half of the meat, about 5 minutes, then transfer to a clean bowl. Repeat with the remaining 1 tablespoon oil and meat.

Briefly re-whisk the soy sauce mixture to recombine, then add to the skillet. Simmer, scraping up any browned bits, until thickened, about 2 minutes.

Return the meat with any accumulated juice to the skillet and toss to warm through. Transfer the meat and sauce to a serving platter and sprinkle with the sesame seeds and scallions.

(In the interest of total disclosure, I couldn't find sesame seeds or scallions during my weekly grocery run - I went to Wal-Mart, need I say more? - so I went without. I don't think it hurt the recipe at all, but I suppose they would have added two more levels of flavor that my dish was lacking. Oh well. I hate when I can't find what I want at the grocery store.)