Pepper Steak Ginger Salad (continued)

Now On To Business

WARNING: Read through this recipe at least once before cooking!

One last thing before we begin: raw meat is bad. If you touch it, if it touches something else, if you touch it with something else, cleaning will be required. So once you handle your raw meat, wash your hands before you handle anything else. Once you cut it, wash your knife and cutting board. Once you take it out of its Tupperware (explained later), wash the Tupperware. The reason why is that there may be bacteria in the meat (that will get toasted during cooking), and this bacteria could get transferred to whatever the meat touches, and from there to anything else. And once the bacteria are on something, it’s recommended to clean it sooner rather than later, so the bacterium doesn’t spread. Now, this might not be exactly as big of a concern as I am making it out to be, but sanitation is the key to a clean kitchen, and therefore clean food, and therefore no sick stomachs.

Get It All Ready
As with most other recipes, getting as much done ahead of time as possible is an extremely helpful practice. So get out all of your ingredients and equipment, and get ready to get to work. I would recommend starting by washing all of your vegetables (but not the meat yet; save that for right before you cut it), and perhaps putting your lettuce into a large bowl (even if you intend to serve the salad in smaller bowls). You can add the tomatoes to the lettuce now, or later, it doesn’t matter much. You should get your cutting board and knife ready, and have that plate standing by as well. Get the wok onto the stove (but not heated or oiled yet), and just get ready with things.

Pepper Time
Generally speaking, one should cut their vegetables before they cut their meat, so as to avoid cross-contamination (just in case). So get all of your peppers out onto your cutting board (or at least near it), grab your knife, and get ready for some slicing.
1. Grab a single pepper, and lay it down on the cutting board. Hold the pepper down by its bottom (narrow) end in one hand, with the knife in your other hand.
2. Place the tip of your blade near the head of the pepper, about 1/5 of the length of the pepper from the stem, and use a single long slice to cut completely through the pepper. You should not need to apply very much pressure (unless you are using a fairly short or dull knife), just let the knife glide through the pepper. They key is to avoid making a sawing motion, as that may tear the skin of the pepper.
3. Using the same slicing technique, slice the very tip off of the pepper as well; just enough so that you can see completely through the pepper.
Now that you have your pepper de-ended, you need to cut it to more manageable pieces. This depends on how exactly the interior of the pepper is formatted. You’ll notice that inside the pepper is a sort of seed pod that is attached to the inner walls of the pepper via a sort of white fleshy stuff. We’ll call this the husk for lack of a better word.
If your pepper has a husk that is attached to the walls of your pepper in an even number of branches (most likely 2 or 4), then…
1. Place your pepper on the cutting board, holding it straight up with the narrow-end down.
2. Place your knife on top of the pepper so that it goes straight through the pepper’s middle, fitted directly in between two husk branches. You may need to re-position your other hand so that it is above the knife (so you don’t cut through your hand).
3. Using the slicing motion described above, cut straight through the pepper down to the board, dividing it in half. If your had more than just 2 branches of husk, divide the remaining pieces in half until you only have one husk-branch per piece.
If your pepper has a husk that is attached to the walls of your pepper in an odd number of branches (most likely 3), then…
1. Place your pepper on the cutting board, holding it straight up with the narrow-end down.
2. Place the tip of your knife on the top of the pepper at a downward angle, between two branches of husk pointing towards the center of the pepper. Make sure your other hand is clear of the knife’s path (which will be straight down).
3. If your knife is sharp enough, you should be able to slide it just about straight down through the pepper, apply just a tiny amount of forward motion to facilitate slicing. If your knife is not as sharp, you may have to use a gentle sawing motion to get all the way down. The idea is to not slice into the opposite side of the pepper.
4. Using this same slicing technique, divide the remaining pieces in half until you only have one husk-branch per piece.
Now that your pepper is cut into one-husk-branch pieces, you may want to cut each piece in half cross-wise (meaning not would have been “vertically” if the pepper were still intact, but across its side) if they seem too big for a single bite. You should also peel off any excess husk on each piece, and remove any seeds (they could just get burnt during cooking). Place all of your pieces of pepper onto the plate.
Repeat the above steps for each pepper until you have all of them cut and on the plate. Then, using the soy sauce decanter, drizzle some soy sauce onto each slice of pepper, thus adding a little extra flavor to the party.
NOTE: Freshly cut peppers with soy sauce, like you have just made, makes for an excellent snack. It’s very rich and powerful in flavor, and is also exceedingly healthy. If you have the patience to cut them, they combo can make a scrumptious alternative to chips’n’dip at a party.

Meatness
Now, naturally if you don’t intend to use meat during your cooking, then you can just skip this step completely. Just scroll on down to the next one.
NOTE: I am not providing thoroughly in-depth steps here on how to cut the meat, as this can seriously depend on the type, shape, and particular cut of meat. I’m afraid you’re just going to have to use your own judgment here, but I will provide some broad guidelines.
Begin by washing your meat (which is indeed something you should do. How clean do you really think it is? And don’t worry about losing the juice, the majority of it should still be nicely packed inside the meat). This simply means giving it a good rinse; definitely don’t use any cleaning products. Once washed, be sure to place your meat directly onto the cutting board; placing it back into its packaging will completely defeat the purpose of cleaning it!
The first thing you want to do is trim any extra fat off of your meat. Don’t be afraid to use a sawing motion here if you have to, but single long strokes are always preferable. How you do this exactly depends on the particular piece of fat and how it is attach to the meat, but you most likely have to cut at an angle while trying to pull the fat away by simply holding it up a little bit (this keeps the fat in tension and makes it easier to slice through its often fibrous connection to the meat).
Once the fat has been trimmed, you are going to cut your meat into thin little slices, about ¼ inch thick, and maybe 1 inch wide, and as long as however tall the slab of meat is. Thus, you should be cutting from the top of the meat down in ¼ inch segments. The idea is get small enough pieces that make for a pleasant single bite, as well as pieces that will cook quickly in the work so that you don’t end up with a burnt exterior and a raw interior (hence the thin slices).
With all of your meat properly cut, place it neatly stacked into the Tupperware. Drizzle some soy sauce into the Tupperware, again simply to add a little extra flavor to the party. You should add enough soy sauce so that roughly the bottom half of the meat is submerged (which should not require too much soy sauce if you stacked your meat well).
If you really want the flavor to get into the meat, let it soak (in the fridge) for about 1 hour. Half way through, flip the container upside down. You should probably put it on top of something to catch any soy sauce that might leak out if your Tupperware doesn’t make a perfect seal. Other techniques that can help are poking holes into the meat with a fork, or even injecting it I suppose

Cooking Time
NOTE: We are going to be cooking with oil here, which simply put, is fairly dangerous. The biggest concern is the oil splashing or bubbling and burning you in a spray of liquid hot death. Sadly, the oil tends to bubble and splat when just about anything else is introduced to the mix, particularly liquids, and most especially water. Under absolutely no circumstances should you try to add water to hot oil, as it will essentially explode. So you might be wondering, “Hey, my peppers and meat are covered in soy sauce, which is seems pretty liquid-y to me. Are you trying to kill me? What gives?” The short answer is “no,” and the long answer will be addressed below.
1. Take your peppers, and individually shake off any excess soy sauce. You may want to simply grab a second plate, shake out a pepper, and place it on the new dry plate.
2. Take your meat, and do roughly the same thing. Remember, the soy sauce that touched the peppers = ok, it won’t harm you (but probably shouldn’t go back into the decanter), but the meaty soy sauce should be well disposed of.
Now that your two ingredients are prepped (yes, it is a shame to lose all of that excess soy, but it will taste mighty dandy), it’s time to prepare the wok.
1. Place your wok on the stove if it isn’t there already, and add some of your oil. You want just enough oil to coat the wok, nothing more. This is simply used as a lubricant so that your precious ingredients don’t stick to the wok.
2. You may wish to use your hand to get the oil coated all over the wok, but in all honestly most of it will end up sliding back down into the middle. That’s fine, but either way you should tilt and turn the wok a bit just to work the oil around a bit.
3. Put the stove on to high heat and let the oil heat up for about three minutes. Sadly, unless you have an infrared thermometer, you can’t very easily check the temperature of the oil, as it won’t look very different unless it starts to burn. Just don’t try touching it or adding water!
Once your oil is heated, prepare to add the peppers to the wok. You may want to give it one last twist and turn to get the oil worked around, and then be ready drop in the peppers.
1. Grab your plate of peppers in one hand, your spatula in the other, and approach the wok.
2. Dump in the peppers (not from very high above the wok of course!). Now, there is a fair chance the oil will react a bit violently at first, so once you add your peppers, feel free to (safely) dart back a foot or two to wait for the initial chaos to subside. Don’t wait more than about five seconds though, as you need to get back in there and start stirring your peppers.
3. Reduce the heat to medium-high, and keep stirring the peppers. This is where the long spatula handle comes in handy, as it allows you to keep your soft, easily burnable flesh at a good distance from the most likely bubbling oil.
Once the peppers seem to have softened a bit and have take on marks of browning, it will be time to add the beef (leave the peppers where they are!). Don’t worry if there is a bit of burnt soy sauce on the pan, that’s just a little carmelization!
1. Add a little more oil, bump the heat up just a notch, and dump in the meat. Run away accordingly.
2. Return to your post and keep mixing things up. You want to try to get the meat covered with searing oil as fast as possible so that its outer most layer becomes sealed, therefore keep all the delicious juices inside.
3. After just a few minutes, several of your pieces of meat will star to seem done. You can try to scoop them out of the middle of the wok and onto the cooler upper sides, while moving and flipping any uncooked pieces/sides of meat to the center to finish off.
Once all of the meat is cooked, immediately transfer all of the solids to a bowl, while trying to avoid dumping the oil along with it. Let this stuff cool for just a little bit before adding it to the salad. Once you have all of your ingredients (lettuce, tomato, peppers, and beef) into the salad (in a large salad bowl presumably), add the dressing. You shouldn’t need too much, as this stuff is fairly strong. Mix it all up, and then you can dish out into single portions, or just bring the whole thing to table. You’re done, enjoy!
Cleanup Tips
Wait for the wok to cool before cleaning it, but don’t let the oil get too solidified onto it either. Hot water helps get the oil off more easily, along with a scrub brush.
Just about everything else should just easily rinse off except for the cutting board: though it may look clean after a rinse, it should be thoroughly washed (as should everything else!).