Sizzling Beef with Scallions and Black Bean Sauce

Friday is Family Movie Night here, so we choose a theme for the night, and our dinner and movie match that theme. Last night, we watched Mulan (A had never seen it; neither had M) and made a stir fry. This one, too, comes from Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. The recipe originally calls for rice, but I made it with chinese noodles. A and I like to use chopsticks with every Asian meal, and she's not a fan of getting rice on the chopsticks. Try it. It might "just...make a man...out of YOU!" Sorry. Too much Mulan, I guess. :)

You need:

Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 cup long-grain or basmati rice or chinese noodles
1/2 pound top loin or sirloin ( I only use grass-fed beef)
Thumb-size piece of fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic
2 scallions
Small bunch of fresh cilantro
2 Tbsp. sesame oil
peanut oil
2 Tbsp. black bean sauce , good quality
2 to 3 Tbsp. soy sauce
2 limes
1 egg

Trim any excess fat from your steak and slice the meat into finger-sized strips. Peel and finely slice the ginger and garlic. Finely slice the chile. Cut the ends off your scallions and finely slice. Pick the cilantro leaves and put to one side, and finely chop the cilantro stalks. Get yourself a big bowl and put in the ginger, garlic, scallions, cilantro stalks and steak strips. Add the sesame oil and mix everything together.

Preheat a wok or large frying pan on a high heat and once it's very, very hot add a good lug of peanut oil and swirl it around. Add all your chopped ingredients from the bowl. Give the pan a really good shake to mix everything around quickly. Stir-fry for 2 minutes, taking care to keep everything moving so it doesn't burn. Add the black bean sauce, and stir in 1 tablespoon of soy sauce and the juice of half a lime. Keep tossing. Taste and season with black pepper and a little more soy sauce. Remove the pan from the heat, transfer everything to a bowl and cover with aluminium foil. Give the pan a quick wipe with a ball of paper towels and put back on the heat. Add a lug of peanut oil and swirl it around. Crack in your egg and add a tablespoon of soy sauce—the egg will cook very quickly so keep stirring. Once it's scrambled, stir in your noodles, scraping the sides and the bottom of the pan as you go. Keep mixing for a few minutes until the noodles are steaming hot, then taste and season with a little soy sauce.

Place the noodles in your dishes. Spoon over the meat and black bean sauce and sprinkle over the cilantro leaves. Serve with wedges of lime.

Serves 4