“Sizzling Beef” Steak Fried Rice
This is not the first time I’ve done a beef fried rice. But it’s the first time I’ve shared any rice dish with steak pieces rather than mince (ground beef) jumbled throughout the rice. In fact, it might be the first time I’ve ever eaten a fried rice with pieces of beef in it! Mind you, I’m not claiming this as an original invention. I’m just saying it’s different from the usual fried rice made with chicken or prawns/shrimp. It’s a bit special. And it is really tasty. It scored highly with the team at RecipeTin Meals, regular recipients of my trials (and errors) in the kitchen. Those tasty little marinated bits of beef “sizzled” until caramelised really makes it!
Keeping little bits of steak tender
Little bits of steak overcook in a flash – as in, less than 90 seconds. So the only way to make this truly enjoyable so we bite into beef that’s caramelised on the surface but tender inside is to marinate and tenderise it. Otherwise, it’s dry cardboard for dinner tonight!! While marinating adds flavor, regular marinades won’t keep the beef soft. To achieve that velvety texture you get in Chinese restaurant beef stir fries, we need to velvet the beef. There’s various ways to do it, but the method I find the easiest for home cooking is to use baking soda (bi-carbonate soda), a tried-and-true technique I’ve shared that many readers love! It’s easy, cheap, and if you’ve never done it before, it’s a game-changer. Read more about it here – How to Velvet Beef for Stir Fries.
Ingredients for Sizzling Beef Fried Rice
Here’s what you need for this fried rice. This dish is Thai flavoured, using fish sauce and oyster sauce as shortcut flavour bumps like in classic Thai Fried Rice.
Beef and marinade
DAY-OLD COLD RICE
You will need 4 cups of day-old cooked rice. You’ll need 1 1/2 cups of uncooked rice (1 cup uncooked rice = 3 cups cooked). I use long-grain rice. Porterhouse/sirloin (called New York Strip in the US, among other names) is similar but it’s a little pricier so I tend to stick with rump.
Other steaks – Sirloin/porterhouse (New York strip), t-bone, flank, skirt, hanger, bavette – excellent! 1 hour marinade. Pricey steaks: Scotch (rib-eye) and tenderloin – pricier, so seems to be a waste to use it in a recipe like this, but it absolutely works. 1 hour marinade. Thin and cheap sizzle steak / minute steak / schnitzel – excellent! Marinade for 4 hours minimum. Pre-cut “beef stir fry strips”, round steak – 4 hour marinade. Slow cooking cuts like chuck, brisket, oyster blade, beef short rib (boneless) – marinade 24 hours, be sure to slice thin. The texture of tenderised slow cooking cuts of beef is not quite the same as steak cuts, but it is still soft and tender, many of them have excellent beefy flavour (like short rib) and I would not hesitate to use any of them if that’s all I had!
Beef fried rice sauce
Here are the ingredients for the sauce. Only three – because the fish sauce and oyster sauce are full flavoured, plus we get flavour in the rice from the beef too!.
Fish sauce – Has more depth of flavour than soy sauce, but can be substituted with regular or light soy sauce. Doesn’t taste fishy once cooked! Oyster sauce – See above beef marinade for description and substitutions. Sugar – To balance the flavour of the saltiness you get from the fish sauce. Any type of sugar is fine here.
💡This fried rice sauce is intentionally more bold flavoured than a typical Chinese Fried Rice because I think it suits the beef better as beef has a stronger flavour than chicken and prawns/shrimp which are the usual proteins used in fried rice.
THE ADD-INS
I used green onion and green beans because I was deliberately going for a green-add-ins fried rice in this recipe. Just to do something different from the typical kaleidoscope of colours you see in fried rice (carrots, corn, peas!). So feel free to substitute the green beans for other vegetables, and the green onion for a regular onion.
How to make Beef Fried Rice
The beef needs 1 hour minimum to marinate but you can leave it overnight. Note: some alternative cuts of beef suggested need a minimum of 4 hours marinating time (ie slow cooking cuts and some of the more economical cuts). See the beef section above or recipe notes for marinating times.
1. MARINATING THE BEEF
2. PREPARING OTHER INGREDIENTS
OK! Prep done, the cook part is nice and quick. Just wait until that beef hits the pan, it smells soooo good! ⚠️ Remember – If you are not using rump / top sirloin, check the recommended marinating time. See Note 1 of the recipe card or the blue box above in the beef section.
3. COOKING THE FRIED RICE IS FAST!
This fried rice is cooked in a large pan instead of a wok because it’s a big-batch of fried rice (enough to serve 4 as a meal) that is too much to fit in a wok. If you try to cook this in a wok, the rice and beef will just “stew” and get sweaty instead of caramelised and toasty. 🙂
Don’t worry if some of it gets stuck (like mine does), just scrape it off and enjoy crispy little egg bits in your rice!
Serving as a meal
I want to tell you that this can be dinner by itself. But to me, it’s too light on the vegetables to be considered a completely meal. My mother did such a good job of brain washing me as a kid! 😖 For a quick option, just add wedges of tomato and hunks of cucumber on the side, no dressing required. Before you dismiss that as boring, it’s not! This fried rice is quite full flavoured so the freshness of plain vegetables is welcome. Also, it’s legit Thai street food style! Plain tomato and cucumbers is a common addition to plates of noodles and rice in Thailand, and as noted above the sauce used in today’s recipe is from my Thai Fried Rice. However, if you want something a little more interesting (and I get it), here are a few simple Asian salads that you could add on the side: The Spicy Asian Zucchini gets a special mention – such a delicious way to get a massive vegetable fix – and the Asian Slaw is a personal favourite as it’s a great standby to have in the fridge. If you’re really pressed for time, just buy a pre-cut slaw mix then toss with the dressing in the Asian Slaw recipe. Or – by pass all that and just enjoy a big steamy bowl of the fried rice for dinner. Those juicy beef bits are the best! Try to resist picking out more than your fair sharing and sneaking it into your bowl. (Who me?😇) – Nagi x
Watch how to make it
Life of Dozer
And today, we have Dozer Maehashi modelling a vibrant green High Performance Life Jacket. This is designed for experienced swimmers to provide a wide range of motion and comes equipped with double handles to restrain your dog from lunging at an ice cream cone held by a 5 year old child. You can even use frozen vegetables! Though the Ice Cream Lunge was not captured on camera, here we have the model demonstrating the freedom of movement this life jacket is designed for: Very different when compared to the sizeable bulk of the extra buoyancy life jacket the model was previously sporting while during his rehabilitation phase: Though much less bulky, the High Performance Life Jacket still provides sufficient buoyancy to give the models’ owner a peace of mind as the model is well into his golden years (12!) and showing early signs of mobility issues that come with old-age-creaky-bones. While the model misses the days of romping around naked on the beach, no life jacket, no matter how bulky, is going to dampen his spirits! On a serious note: I originally got the High Performance Life Jacket several months ago when Dozer was still mid-rehabilitation, but ended up returning it because I didn’t think it provided enough buoyancy for him. But he’s come such a long away, even being praised by the Magic Dog Doctor for his progress (it’s like getting a gold star at school!), that I decided to give the High Performance Jacket a go again. He’s so much happier with more freedom of movement!
