Thai Red Curry With Beef

I'm always trying to find ways to add vegetables into our meals. It's hard, because vegetables are just not as exciting as pies! You can make a salad, or steam some vegetables as a side, but that gets old. Asian stir-fry to the rescue!

Actually, I really don't remember vegetables being a main part of Taiwanese dishes or Chinese dishes. We had a lot of seafood, steamed buns with meat fillings, and soups with seafood or meat bits (pig intestines).

A meal for ten in Qingdao, China

Honestly we didn't cook all that often. Food stands were, and still is, prevalent and cheap. The main part of our diet was fruit.

However, the idea of stir-fry has been burned into my DNA--to me, this is the basic way to make a meal. It's so quick and you can add any kind of vegetable you want. For a complete meal, you have to make the rice ahead of time, and you have to chop the vegetables. But after that, it takes literally 5 minutes. I consider Thai Red Curry a delicious variation to the basic stir-fry. I think beef gives the best flavor to this dish. I tried making it with tofu and it just wasn't the same.

Thai Red Curry With Beef
1 clove garlic, minced
3 tbsp oil
1/2 lb beef strips or slices
1 green pepper, sliced
1/2 red onion, sliced
1 cup broccoli florets
1 tbsp fish sauce
2 cups coconut milk
3 tbsp red curry sauce
2 tbsp Asian basil, chopped

Heat 1 tbsp oil on medium high heat. Add garlic and beef. Stir-fry until beef is just browned. About 1 minute. Remove beef. Heat up the rest of the oil. Add the vegetables and stir-fry until slightly tender. About 1 minute. Mix in the fish sauce, coconut milk, and red curry sauce. Add the beef and basil and simmer for 3 minutes. Serve with white rice.