Trader Joe's curry powder is my new best friend

I was in Trader Joe's two weeks ago looking for garam masala.  I didn't see that spice, but I did find curry powder, which in my head seemed close enough.  Looking at the ingredients it seemed like a decent substitute: cumin, turmeric, coriander, chili pepper mustard, cardamom, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, red pepper, cinnamon, black pepper, and saffron.  Wow, all of this for $1.99!  I was sold.

It's two weeks into cooking with TJ's curry powder now, and I gotta say that it's delicious.  Tonight I made a beef stir fry and added a teaspoon of the curry powder to the base sauce.  It was delectable.  Here's what I did:

Using my new America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook I flipped to page 359 "Beef and Broccoli Stir-Fry."  I more or less stuck to the recipe, omitting three things and substituting a few others.  Here are the ingredients I used:

• 2 teaspoons soy sauce
• 1/4 cup low sodium chicken broth
• 2 tablespoons of white wine
• 2 teaspoons of sugar
• 2 teaspoons sesame oil
• 2 teaspoon corn starch
• about a pound of good steak (I used sirloin)
• my other good friends salt 'n pepa
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 small zucchini, chopped whichever way you like
• 1 red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and chopped medium
• 1/3 cup water
• 6 garlic cloves
• 3 scallions
• 1 tablespoon grated ginger

First, before prepping anything, I put the steak in the freezer.  Why freeze the steak?  Well it's so that it'd be easy for slicing.  (Thank you informative side note in America's Test Kitchen cookbook).

Next I mixed the soy sauce, broth, white wine, sugar, sesame oil and corn starch together in a small bowl.  And since curry powder is my new best friend, I threw in a teaspoon of that in as well.

In the meantime while waiting on the steak in the freezer I prepped the zucchini, red bell peppers, garlic cloves, scallions, and ginger.  I put them in small bowls so that I could easily put them in at the right step.

Fast forward about 15-30 minutes and the the steak was just frozen enough.  I took it out, sliced it into two inch strips about 1/4 inch thick.  I guess this is your personal preference on how you want your meat sliced.  Sprinkle salt and freshly ground pepper over your meat.  Don't be shy about seasoning things.

At this point, it's time to cook the beef.  Put a tablespoon of oil (I like using olive oil because it makes me feel healthy) into a large non-stick pan on high heat.  Wait until it's smoking and throw in the beef.  In about five minutes it should be cooked more or less.   Remove the beef and place on a plate.

In the same frying pan, add the zucchini, bell pepper, and water.  Lower the heat to medium.  I cover my pan with a larger pan since none of my pans have covers.  (This is called being resourceful.)  In about 2-4 minutes, depending on how you sliced and diced things, your veggies should be cooked for the most part. I uncovered the pan at this point and cooked the veggies a bit more until most of the water has dried up.

Throw in the the last tablespoon of olive oil, the 6 cloves of garlic (kind of excessive now that I think about it), and the ginger.  This is my favorite part of cooking.  For some reason, when I start cooking the garlic and ginger in a recipe, it makes me feel like a real chef).  About 30 seconds to a minute later you should start smelling the garlic.  Now you should re-mix the curry/soy sauce mixture just to get the ingredients up and running again.  Pour it over the zucchini and red peppers.  Finally, add the sliced beef from before and cook until the ingredients meld and the beef is fully cooked.

Voila!  My dinner tonight was delicious.  I personally had my beef stir fry with brown rice, which I've discovered tastes really good and nutty in comparison to your generic white kind.

Prep time: Approximately 30 minutes (if you include the freezing of the beef)
Cooking time: 30 minutes