Pomegranate Stir Fry

Hi everyone.

Tonight, I created a game fit for Master Chef - The Pretension Test. Probably every two weeks or so I throw something stupid in whatever I'm cooking and it works about half of the time; it's almost always something that if you tried really hard, you could imagine seeing on a fancy restaurant's menu. For example, pomegranate stir fry. Hence, The Pretension Test.

I was cooking a NY Steak (which, as an aside, was my first successful meat cooking ever - as in a perfectly cooked steak), and I wanted a decent side to go with it. I decided to make a stir fry and chopped some basic ingredients up ready to go. While it was on the stove I threw in some extras for kicks and it turned out to be so good that I thought I'd share it here.

NY Steak with Pomegranate, Beer and Kecap Manis stir fry


Ingredients (the below is for one person, so multiply accordingly):

One hefty steak
A bit of broccoli
One squash
Some ginger
3 shallots
1 carrot
A splash of beer
Rice vinegar
Kecap Manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce)
Half a pomegranate
English Spinach
Chili of your choice
Olive or Rice Oil

Any vegetables are fine, of course.

Firstly, I heated up the BBQ. The secrets to cooking good steak on the BBQ are to get that grill hot and to only turn the steak once - one way to check when it's ready to turn it (if you want medium rare) is to leave it one side down til blood comes through on the top, then flip it. Watch the sides til it's brown down the whole side. I don't know how to explain it better than that, but you can usually tell.

Chop the vegetables up and get a pan on the heat with some olive oil. Rub olive oil over the steak then put it on the BBQ. Back to the stove, throw in the ginger (also garlic and onion if you'd like it). Once that's a bit cooked, add the vegetables (everything except the spinach). After a little while, I threw in some pickled Hoyt's Mild Peppers and the seeds and juice of half a pomegranate followed by a splash of beer, a splash of vinegar and probably 2 tablespoons of kecap manis (regular soy sauce will be OK, too). When the vegetables are pretty much cooked, throw the spinach in and turn the heat off -stir it through and tend to your steak.



I served the steak with this stir fry and a teaspoon of hot english mustard (because I can't imagine eating meat without it).

The stir fry above will work with a lot of things obviously, not just meat - it would be great as it is with tofu or tempeh or mock meat added to make it a meal.

It's one of those wanky meals with savoury fruit thing going on but it really was delicious. Let me know of any crazy combinations you try?

Kurt