Beef of the Thatched Roof Cottage

So this began as an attempt to make chinese takeout style beef that was supposed to be super super spicy.  In the end it turned out not to be nearly as potent as I had anticipated it would be so it was downgraded from Trogdor level spiciness to beef of the thatched roof cottage.  General Trogdor's chicken actually was realized and will be posted soon, like in an hour or so as this blog has become incredibly backlogged.

So down to the cooking.  I started with some beef, a simple cheap cut which I cubed out into strips with my santoku knife and then lightly floured and then seared to give the outside a crust like texture.

To cook the beef I literally just floured it and then dropped it in a pan of hut butter to sear and get a nice crust.  After that I just piled it all on a plate and then drizzled the sauce over it for presentation.

The sauce was actually alot simpler than I had first thought.  I took a jar of blackberry preserves and combined that in a small pot with some soy sauce, white wine vinegar, and wasabi powder.  I thought that the wasabi powder would give the sauce a pretty good kick but as it cooked and reduced down apparently so did the potency of the wasabi.  Ultimately I just let it reduce until it was thick but still a liquid, if it starts not wanting to pour smoothly off the spoon.  The hardest part of this dish was the haphazard attempt i made at a crushed peanut topping.  Apparently if you put a bunch of peanuts into a plastic bag and then strike them with a frying pan, they band together, forming some sort of blunt force trauma mutual defense pact.  But it added a little pizazz to the finished dish so if you have the time/patience/implements to easily pulverize some peanuts to top the beef, then more power to you.  If not the beef was still delicious.