Caramel Shaking Beef - No Veggies

This dish didn't have a picture in the cookbook so I was a little worried to try it, but the ingredient list was short and it's meat so what's not to love?  It was actually the short ingredient list that made me write it on my list of 4 recipes to cook first.  It was quick and easy which was nice on a day like today.  :) 

My husband started by defrosting meat and cutting it into pieces.  Once it was all cut, we weighed it and realized we were about a pound short (incase you are wondering, we buy beef by the 1/2 or 1/4 cow so the weight is not written on the package).  Since we already had the sauce mixture done, we added the beef that was finished and thawed out some more.  The beef is supposed to sit in the sauce for 30 minutes and we did that with the first steak we cut up, but the other half of the meat wasn't in there for the full 30 minutes and we were too hungry to wait any longer.

Kind of looks like caramel

The cookbook suggested turning on our hood fan which made me nervous because ours doesn't work well and we just had a smoke detector testing with the last dish we made.  Still, we went for it.  When the pan was hot, I added the oil.  Then, I cooked the meat in two batches.  I wonder if it would work better with a wok.  Jet never says to split the meat to cook it and we have a big frying pan so I'm not sure why mine is trying to boil itself, but cooking in batches seemed to help tonight.   Once the meat is added, you keep the pan moving (shaking) while you cook and magically, it doesn't stick.  It was probably the cleanest the pan has ever been after cooking a mixture with sugar in it.  Of course, the meat didn't brown like I expected it to either.  


Jet said to serve it with crusty bread, which we did, but it would have also been very good with rice or top ramen (probably not Jet's first choice).  Caramel Shaking Beef sort of tastes like teriyaki.  It was really good.  Also, it didn't say to add salt so I didn't and it was just fine.  I think it could have used a little salt, but that could just be because of the fish sauce we used.  I'm still worried none of my ingredients are the right kind!  

To tell you just how good it really was, four people (moaning this is delicious with nearly every bite) managed to eat two pounds of this yummy beef, so, I'd say that's a win!  Of course, I have no picture to compare it too so I'm not sure if it looks right or not.... Maybe that's a good thing. 

The next and final dish for this shopping list:  Pad Thai... I'm going to be changing this recipe quite a bit, but I'm hoping it will taste yummy.  I just discovered Pad Thai a few months ago when my friend and I met for dinner one night.  I LOVE it and I hope I'll be able to make a version I like at home.... it looks complicated, but Jet is providing me with four pages to view for this recipe; two of which a full page photos.  Maybe now would be a good time to get that wok.  ;-)