8-43: Chinese Beef and Rice is essentially beef stir-fry served with some rice, but it’s done in less than 30 minutes, which is a big plus. This one goes along with several other Chinese restaurant-style dishes that Simply Delicious has featured, including 6-11: Chinese Duck and 11-36: Hong Kong Shrimp.
Chinese cuisine is a lot more prevalent today in the United States than it was 30-40 years ago when Simply Delicious was being written & printed. I suppose we have cookbooks like this to thank in some small part for introducing many 1980s American families to a more global palate.
Speaking of a global palate–I made this dish vegan. Yes, that picture above is vegan–keep reading to find out how. #clickbait
Check out the TIPS–salt was a concern in the 1980s (along with a lot of other nutritional things), but they do have a point. Don’t go too crazy with it or you’ll regret it the next morning. Maybe that’s just me–things affect you differently in your 30s than they did in your earlier years.
Ingredients. I swapped real beef for “beefless tips“–were you even able to tell before now? The “fake” meat is getting better and better each year–we really don’t even eat the real stuff anymore. I went with a leek instead of green onions, and jasmine rice for my long-grain option. Oh, and I swapped butter for canola oil to make this version of this dish vegan.
I even have a decent vegan “beef” stock–whipping some up for cooking the rice.
Slicing up the peppers–these are gypsy peppers from the CSA box. They’re pretty close to bell peppers, so they’ll work for this recipe.
Slicing all the peppers julienne style (at least, most of them).
And of course, the leek must be sliced the same way as well.
Rice is cooking in the rice cooker, with a slight brown tinge from the “beef” stock.
The beefless tips as they come frozen in the bag.
These don’t need to cook quite as long as real beef, but they need some time to unfreeze, warm up, and to get a bit of color.
Looking much closer to the real thing now.
I pulled the “beef” out of the pan and threw the veggies in to soak up the flavor still in the pan.
After the veggies cook down some, I tossed the “meat” back in.
I chose to top my rice with the “meat” and veggies rather than stir them together–it’s up to you how you want to serve it. For under 30 minutes (and in this case, vegan), it’s a pretty good deal.
Grade: A–