ANYWAYS! Has anyone out there ever marinated ground beef before? Because I did - completely by accident. Because of the frost build-up in my still-working freezer along with my awesome ground beef freezing method by squishing it flat in a ziploc baggie, I somehow managed to confuse the ground beef with steak when I attempted to marinade it a few nights ago with, of course, the most random mixture known to man. A bit of Italian dressing and this new pretty good sesame ginger stuff I mixed up, which apparently promises to tenderize meats.
Somehow, someway, a major nearly crippling accident turned into an awesomely delicious meal. Okay, I suppose I need to rewind a bit. Have I mentioned beforehand that my refrigerator has been broken since the despicable date of MAY 21ST?! Thank the ever-loving heavens that my freezer is still working, but in the off-chance that anyone might actually read this, could you please take a second to curse my apartment landlord for still not fixing this problem? ANYWAYS! Has anyone out there ever marinated ground beef before? Because I did - completely by accident. Because of the frost build-up in my still-working freezer along with my awesome ground beef freezing method by squishing it flat in a ziploc baggie, I somehow managed to confuse the ground beef with steak when I attempted to marinade it a few nights ago with, of course, the most random mixture known to man. A bit of Italian dressing and this new pretty good sesame ginger stuff I mixed up, which apparently promises to tenderize meats. Sounds pretty good for steak, huh? But for ground beef? I was completely and utterly lost. The smell produced a mostly Asian-y scent, and I have never made anything in my life Asian-y with ground beef. But OMG this recipe. I don't even know why or how this works, but it seriously does and was so incredibly delicious. I honestly got to Google page like 30 trying to find "Asian ground beef" recipes, and was still pretty scared to cook this up. But then I did, and it was super excellent. The flavor was soooo incredible. The Italian dressing simply melted into the sesame ginger flavorings and they all surprisingly paired and worked together. I seriously can't even describe it. It all just worked. In fact, when the meal was done I came prepared with soy sauce to flavor the rice, but it wasn't even needed. The dish didn't even have an Asian-y feel or taste to it. It was just...really good. I'm not sure how much more I can explain about it. It wasn't an Asian dish, it wasn't Italian, it was just juicy, succulent, and yumbo. I started off by browning my ground beef. Ever the skeptic, I even tried to rinse the marinade off of the meat once it had thawed. But then it started cooking and the awesome scent was shooting out at me, and I began to form a plan. I still have those Serrano peppers just hanging around, so I decided to chop one up and throw it into the meat mixture in some kind of half-assed attempt at a spicy Korean beef bowl. But oh boy, was it starting to smell really good. I had already decided that I wanted to serve this as a "bowl" type of dish on top of rice, so I wanted it to be saucy. So, after mixing in my diced Serrano pepper, I added the usual awesome ingredients of onion powder, garlic powder, and, upon tasting, red pepper flakes (my serrano pepper was wayyyy too mild for this dish). Then, I added in about half a cup of water and some beef bouillon, to add to the sauciness., and a few more tablespoons of the sesame ginger sauce. Meanwhile, I also knew that I wanted to have some veggies with this, and while my initial plan was to mix them with the meat, the sauce wasn't looking plentiful enough, so I decided to nuke 'em with some soy sauce and red pepper flakes. So, I continued to let the ground beef saucy stuff simmer and simmer on until my rice cooker finally switched into it's done mode. Typically, I make rice on the stovetop, but my rice cooker has been acting really awesome lately, so I decided to roll with it. And for like the 4th time in a row, it came out perfectly awesome. So! Simple, strategic act of layering in a bowl: rice first, then veggies if you're including (like my dish), then awesome kinda saucy ground beef mixture on top. At first, it seemed lacking in the sauciness that I desired, but once I mixed the meat into the rice, it was ABSOLUTELY PERFECT. Seriously, I highly recommend that you try this and break out of your boring ground beef recipe rut.
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AuthorFood is my absolute passion. The highlight of my day is when I get to cook, and especially eat. I'm super simple. I don't have crazy fancy ingredients. I just try to cook delicious, healthy (most of the time) meals for my mister and I. Archives
July 2016
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