Beef Tomato Stir Fry

This recipe is called something else, but I don’t speak Japanese, so our family always called it ‘Beef Tomato’.

My mom got this recipe from one of her Japanese friends when we were living on Whidbey Island, Washington.

Ingredients:

  • Rice
  • Vegetable oil
  • Round steak, cut into 2″ x ½” strips
  • 1 – 2 onions, cut into vertical slices (think of the onion as a globe with the roots and stems as the polar caps, then cut pole-to-pole slices)
  • 3 – 4 stalks of celery, sliced on the diagonal
  • 1 large green pepper, cut into long ½” strips
  • 1 – 2 cans of green beans (not French cut), drained
  • 3 – 4 tomatoes, each cut into 8 wedges
  • Soy sauce

This is the best order I have discovered to prepare this recipe.

Start cooking your rice.  You will want 1½ cup portions for each plate.

While the water for the rice boils, cut the meat and vegetable into slices, open and drain the green beans.

Get out a large 3 – 4 quart pot with a lid and a wok or large frying pan.

Put 1 – 2 teaspoons of oil in a wok or large frying pan and turn the heat up medium high.  When the oil is hot, brown the round steak strips and transfer them and the juices into the other pot.  Put the lid on the pot to retain the heat, but don’t put any fire under this pot.  Then, one by one, add a little more oil and stir fry the veggies, dumping them layer by layer into the pot in this order:

  • Onions
  • Celery
  • Pepper
  • Green beans
  • Tomatoes

Your rice should be done by the time you finish stir frying the tomatoes.  Stir up the pot and serve over rice with a little soy sauce.

This is another recipe that is fantastic the next day after all the juices have marinated in the fridge.  I even eat it cold.