Main Ingredients:
Ground Pork: as needed; Ground Beef: as needed.
Seasonings:
Salt: as needed; Pepper: as needed; Garlic: as needed; Scallions: as needed; Ginger: as needed; Chili: as needed; Sesame Oil: as needed.
Taste: Mildly Spicy; Cooking Method: Stir-fry; Time: Twenty Minutes; Difficulty: Moderate.
Red Pepper Beef – Gordon Cooking Steps
Choose an appropriate amount of ground pork and ground beef, in a 1:1 ratio to prevent the beef from becoming too dry.
Mix together and season with salt and pepper.
Heat the pan, add olive oil (enough to cover the entire pan), and place the mixed pork and beef in small pieces into the pan without pouring all at once, stir-fry quickly.
Use a spatula to separate the meat pieces, stir-fry gently until browned.
Pour the fried minced meat into a strainer to drain excess oil.
Cut the chili, scallions, ginger, and garlic into small pieces, except for ginger, use about 3 pieces each. Adjust the amount of ginger based on personal preference for spiciness.
Clean the pan, add a spoonful of sesame oil.
Add chili, garlic, and ginger to the pan, stir-fry until fragrant.
Sprinkle some brown sugar (you can look up brown sugar, it’s similar to but slightly different from regular sugar. It should be easy to find).
Add the meat to the pan.
Pour in some fish sauce for added saltiness (if you don’t have fish sauce, you can use soy sauce instead).
Gordon sprinkles lime zest into the pan for texture, then squeezes some lime juice. If you can’t find lime, you can use lemon juice, but skip the zest (as lime has a milder flavor than lemon!)
Finally, add chopped scallions.
Heat for about 30 seconds.
Turn off the heat and plate the dish.
After this, Gordon also provides a sauce for this dish, but I haven’t detailed it here. According to us Chinese, this dish can be considered a Western-style stir-fry. So there’s no need to serve it on lettuce leaves, put the meat in and drizzle with sauce. At step 11, you can taste the dish for saltiness. If it’s too bland, you can add some salt or cumin for seasoning (it’s best not to add salt since you already added salt and pepper when mixing the meat initially, so you can adjust the seasoning at that point).
