Derek Wilkins

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE 

This Korean Chicken Stir Fry is easy to cook on a busy weeknight, and it’s packed full of flavor. With lean chicken and 5 different vegetables, it’s also a healthy meal your whole family will love.

If you don’t have a wok, do not worry. You can make this in a large saute pan over a smaller burner, creating a hotter spot in the center while it stays a bit cooler around the edges of the pan.

4 generous servings or 6 more modest servings.

This includes: 

2 Fresh Chicken Breasts, cubed

8 oz Kalbi Sauce

1 onion

1 red bell pepper

1 green bell pepper

Large head of broccoli

10-12 oz carrots

1 quart of cooked jasmine rice with parsley

What You Will Need

Cutting board, for the vegetables

5 Tablespoons vegetable oil, divided

1 large wok or 12” saute pan

Spatula or wooden straight-edged spatula

Tongs

½ cup water

Mise en Place

It is always a good idea to prep all your ingredients (mise en place) before starting to cook, but it is especially important with a stir fry since it goes so quickly.

1. Place chicken into a zip lock bag and pour in ¼ cup of Kalbi marinade.
2. Press out as much air as you can, zip the bag, and massage to evenly distribute the marinade. Set aside while you prep the vegetables.
   
3. Slice onion in half from top to bottom. Peel off the papery skin and discard. Cut off stem and blossom ends. Cut ¼” slices from top to bottom so you end up with almost half-moon shapes. Set aside.
4. Wash and dry red and green bell peppers. Set the red pepper upright on your cutting board. Slice straight down around the sides of the pepper, rotating the pepper as you make each cut. You will end up with “slabs” of pepper, and you’ll be left with the stem end, blossom end, and seeds untouched. Slice each piece of pepper into about ⅓” slices. Repeat with the green pepper.
5. Rinse and dry the broccoli. Cut off the very thick stem holding the head together. Cut the remaining broccoli into bite-sized florets, discarding any stem thicker than ½”.
6. Slice the carrots on the bias (diagonally) into ¼” slices.
7. Spread the rice out on a large, microwave-safe plate and cover with a moist paper towel.

How to Make Korean Chicken Stir Fry

1. Heat your wok or saute pan over medium-high heat until very hot.
2. Add 2 ½ Tablespoons of oil to the pan and heat for another 30 seconds.
3. Using tongs, and working in batches, place about ⅓ of the chicken pieces into the pan. Don’t crowd the pan. Saute the chicken pieces on one side until nicely golden brown, about 3 minutes. The sugar in the marinade will ensure the chickens gets some nice caramelization.
4. Turn the chicken pieces and cook until almost done, another 2 minutes. Remove to a plate and repeat with the remaining chicken pieces.
5. Once you have cooked all the chicken, the pan will have a lot of deeply browned residue in it. Add the water. It will boil almost immediately. Scrape the pan with your wok spatula or wooden spatula to get all the browned bits off the pan. Add this little bit of water to the remainder of your marinade.
6. Wipe the pan clean, place it back over medium-high heat, and add the other 2 ½ Tablespoons of oil.
7. Begin adding your vegetables in order from the ones you want most done to the ones you want least done, keeping them moving with your wooden spatula, and adding the next vegetable every 1 ½ minutes. If you like your broccoli more done, start with the broccoli. If you like very soft onions, start with the onions. The order they were added for the photos was carrots, onions, broccoli, and then the peppers.
8. Once you have the last of the vegetables in the wok or saute pan, add the chicken back to the pan and pour in the other 3/4 cup of the Kalbi sauce then mix all together.
9.  Reheat the rice in the microwave, covered with the paper towel about 2 minutes.
10. Stir fry another 2 minutes to reheat the chicken and allow the sauce to reduce slightly and coat all the meat and vegetables.
11. Plate individually or serve family style with the remaining Kalbi sauce on the side and Enjoy, Dinner Done Easy!

Dinner Done Easy: Korean Chicken Stir Fry

By Jenni Field/Pastry Chef Online

Carne asada realy just means grilled beef, so it’s a pretty generic term. However, what I generally think of is a marinated piece of flank or skirt steak, cut into thin strips and then served in tortillas along with some garnishes. And since that’s what I think of when I hear “carne asada,” that’s what we’re making for the August Steak of the Month:

The Flank steak is a long, flat cut that comes from the abdomen of the animal. The muscle fibers are tough, long, and coarse, because they work hard. And because they work hard, they’re also full of deep beef flavor. The trick is to prepare flank steak and cut it to maximize flavor while minimizing toughness. Fortunately, this is not hard to do. With its long, loose muscle fiber structure, flank steak is made to hold onto flavorful marinades. Take a shortcut here and order your flank steak marinated in any of The Butcher’s Markets’ bold marinades, although I recommend the ancho chili lime marinade for this recipe.

Cook your flank steak hot and fast, let it rest, and slice it against the grain to cut those muscle fibers into short sections and rendering it tender. With some cuts, it’s hard to tell which way the fibers actually run, but with flank steak, the long fibers are apparent, and all you have to do is make your slices perpendicular to the grain.

Carne Asada Flank Steak Tacos

Whether cooking indoors or out, you will get great results by cooking quickly over high heat. We recommend cooking flank steak to medium rare to keep the interior juicy and flavorful. And don’t forget to slice across the grain. Cut straight down for thin slices for tacos, or make your cuts on an extreme bias to end up with broader slices that look nice when plated alone.

• 2-pound flank steak, marinated in The Butcher’s Market Ancho-Lime marinade or marinade of your choice.
• Kosher salt
• Flour tortillas

Garnish

• Tomatillo, diced
• Red onion, diced
• Shaved red radish (slice very thinly with a knife or use a mandoline or even a sharp vegetable peeler)
• Cotija cheese, crumbled (or substitute shredded cheddar or jack)
• Fresh Cilantro, chopped
• Lime wedges to squeeze over the tacos

Other Garnish Ideas

• Salsa or salsa verde
• Mexican crema or sour cream
• Diced pickled jalapeno
• Yah’s Best Cole Slaw

• Remove the meat from the refrigerator about an hour before cooking to allow to come to room temperature.
• If cooking indoors, heat your largest cast iron skillet over medium high heat for a good 10 minutes.
• If cooking on the grill, get a deep bed of coals screaming hot. or on gas preheat to high.
• Place the meat in the skillet or directly over the coals and close the lid. Cook for 4-5 minutes per side, only flipping once, until the center of the meat reads 130F.
• If cooking inside, repeat with the other half of your flank steak.
• Let rest for 10 minutes before thinly slicing across the grain.

To Warm the Tortillas

• Heat a dry skillet over medium high heat until hot, about 10 minutes.
• Sprinkle a bit of cold water on one side of each tortilla.
• Place it, wet side down, in the skillet and let cook about 30 seconds or until there are some deep golden brown spots on that side. Sprinkle a bit more water on the uncooked side of the tortilla and flip. Cook an additional 30 seconds, or until nicely browned in spots.
• Keep warm in a 200F oven until all your tortillas are cooked.

To Assemble the Tacos

• For each taco, consider 2 tortillas stacked
• Top with 2-3 slices of flank steak.
• Garnish with any or all of the garnishes. Less is more, so plan on using no more than 1-2 teaspoons of each kind of garnish. You can be a bit more liberal with the sour cream or salsa, if using, but overfilling leads to messy tacos.
• You can top all the tacos yourself, or present a taco bar by providing bowls of each topping and allowing your guests to use their favorite combination of toppings.

Developed for The Butcher’s Market By Jenni Field the Pastry Chef Online

Congratulations on your decision to take on the Cowboy Steak. Now that you have this gorgeous cut at
home, you might have some questions.
What Is a Cowboy Steak?
A cowboy steak is a thick (2 ½”-3”) bone-in ribeye cut between the ribs and feeds 1-2 easily. As with all our beef, these cuts come only from the upper 1/3 of Choice and Prime grades then aged to perfection. Many companies cut all the meat away from the rib bone (Frenching), but at The Butcher’s Market, we leave that rib meat attached for additional flavor. Call it our gift to the chef.
What is the Best Way to Cook a Cowboy Steak?
The best method we’ve found to properly cook a massive cowboy steak is the Reverse Sear method.
How to Reverse Sear
When done correctly, the reverse sear method will yield a steak with even doneness from edge
to edge and a beautifully seared crust. This is not a hard technique to master. There are just a
few rules to follow.
● Remove steaks from the fridge 1-2 hours before cooking to allow to come to room temperature.
● Season liberally with The Butcher’s Market House Seasoning, Camp Mix or just salt and pepper for 30 minutes
before cooking. Now Preheat oven to 250 degrees.

● Roast the meat on a rack until a leave in thermometer reads an internal temperature of 125 degrees (for medium rare) 120 degrees (for rare). Cook time will be about 50 – 75 minutes.
● Allow to rest for 10 minutes.
● Brush each side of the steak with a thin coat of vegetable oil. This allows the
steak to make good contact with the pan and sears evenly. DO not use EVOO as it burns as these high heats.
● Heat a cast iron or stainless steal skillet(not non-stick) on till hot then sear steak for 2 minutes per side.
● Don’t forget the sides–hold the steak with tongs vertically and sear the sides.
● Slice and serve.
Have More Time? Maximize Flavor with a Dry Brine
The Reverse Sear method takes a while, but if you start mid-afternoon, you can enjoy it for
dinner. If you have more time, you owe it to yourself to try the dry-brining method. This method
serves three purposes:
● it draws flavor deep inside the meat
● it allows salt time to denature some of the proteins in the steak, resulting in an even
more tender cut
● it dries the surface of the steak so it takes minimal time to sear
Here’s the timetable.
➔ Two Days Before Cooking
◆ Season the steak fairly heavily with kosher salt (½ teaspoon per side)
◆ Also sprinkle on a good amount (maybe ¼ teaspoon per side) Butcher’s Market
Steak Seasoning
◆ Set a small, oven-safe rack on a plate or try to catch any juices and refrigerate in
a cold refrigerator for 48 hours. You will find that the meat initially gets very wet
as the salt goes into solution with the juices it is pulling out of the meat. Once this
has happened, the seasoned salt water will get pulled back into the meat through
osmosis. As part of the dry-brining process, the surface of the meat will dry out
and will lose its cherry red color.
➔ Two Hours Before Cooking
◆ Remove the steak and rack from the fridge and allow to temper on the counter. It
will not need any additional seasoning.
➔ Cook the Steak
◆ Put the steak, still on the rack, in a shallow roasting pan and roast in a 200F oven
to an internal temperature of 125F, about 1 ½ hours. Check the temperature with
an instant read thermometer.
◆ Continue with the reverse sear method, above. Note it will take less time to
achieve a nice sear since the surface of the meat is nice and dry after seasoning. It should take no more than 1 minutes 30 seconds per side

Recipe is a collaboration with Jenni Field