Beef dragon for Fortune Cooking Contest

Beef dragon is a recipe that I saw on a cookery show sometime back when I was in India. I guess it could be called an Indo-Chinese recipe, more towards Indian. All I remember is my mother-in-law and I preparing this for lunch the next weekend. We were pretty impressed, but typical of men, the three men in the household didnt mention about it at all, until asked. We were infuriated and this recipe went on the back burner, until now. (BTW, the men also loved it). I was thinking of doing something different with beef when I found this recipe in my old book. It didnt mention the ingredient measurements, but I was pretty confident to work with what I had. We had grilled some steaks on the same day, so it was kind of a beef overload! When I got around to tasting it later in the day, it was awesome! I could finally recollect why we enjoyed it when we made it the first time. Atleast now, thankfully, I got a good review from JM. I loved it too!

I am sending this to Shriya's Fortune Cooking Contest at Spicy Tasty. I chose beef because it is the non-vegetarian choice given for Sagittarius (Nov 22- Dec 21). Eventhough my zodiac sign is not Sagittarius, it is special to me because four members of my family are Sagittarians - my lil one who was born in Nov, whose birthday almost always falls on or near Thanksgiving day, my husband and dad who share their birth dates (but born years apart, ofcourse!) and my brother who also is a Sagittarian. So what better zodiac sign to celebrate with!

Hope you all are enjoying the weekend! We just had a severe tornado warning in our area. It has just moved on farther to the Southern and Eastern areas. Hope no one gets harmed!!

Recipe:

Beef - 1 lb, cut into thin strips
Ginger-garlic paste - 1 tsp
Chilli powder - 1 tsp
Turmeric powder - a pinch
Garam masala powder - 1/2 tsp
Corn flour - 2 tsp
All-purpose flour - 2 tsp
Green bell-pepper - 1/2 of a large
Yellow onion - 1/2 of a medium
Soy sauce - 2 tbsp
Tomato ketchup - 1 tbsp
Salt - as needed
Red color - a pinch (optional)

Method:

Cook the beef with a little bit of salt and a pinch of turmeric powder in a pressure cooker. (I put it on high heat for 3 whistles, took it off the heat and let it cool by itself)

Once cooled, mix the beef with the spice powders, all-purpose flour, cornflour, ginger-garlic paste and food color.

Keep aside for 30 minutes. ( I skipped this step :-) )

Fry the beef strips in oil until brown/reddish brown.

Slice the onions lengthwise to form long slivers.

Cut the bell-peppers lengthwise.

In a skillet, heat oil and saute the onions until tender.

Toss in the bell-peppers and saute until slightly soft, but it should still retain a crunch to it.

Add the fried beef and mix well with the onions and peppers.

Mix in the soy-sauce and the tomato ketchup.

Toss to coat evenly.

Serve hot with rice or Indian breads.



Tips:

1. The beef strips, when fried, should be slightly crisp. Do not over-fry or they will become hard and chewy.
2. Celery will also form an interesting pair with bell-peppers.
3. These would also go well as fillings for wraps.
4. Change the amount of onions and bell-peppers as desired. Next time, I would double their quantities.