Hot wok, glossy sauce, ten minutes of actual cooking

A stir-fry lives or dies on the cut, and round is quietly one of the best in the share for it. It's lean and fine-grained, so sliced thin across the grain it turns into exactly the beef strips a wok wants — quick to brown, tender to bite. Get the rice on first, line everything up beside the stove, and dinner moves fast from there. Ginger, garlic, snow peas and a glossy oyster-sauce finish. It's the reliable Tuesday answer for the round steaks that turn up every single week.

25 mins 4 servings Prep 15 minsCook 10 minsMain CourseChinese

Ingredients

  • 460g Your Farmer grass-fed beef round steaks, sliced into thin strips across the grain
  • 1 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 tsp cornflour
  • 2 tbsp peanut or vegetable oil
  • 3cm piece ginger, cut into matchsticks
  • 2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
  • 200g snow peas, topped and tailed
  • 2 tbsp oyster sauce
  • Steamed jasmine rice, to serve

Instructions

Slice the steaks across the grain into strips about 5mm thick, then toss them with the soy sauce and cornflour. Let them sit while you prep everything else — that light coating is what gives you glossy, tender beef.

460g round steaks1 tbsp soy sauce1 tsp cornflour

Get the rice cooking, and line up the ginger, garlic, snow peas and sauce right beside the stove. A stir-fry waits for nobody.

Heat half the oil in a wok or your widest pan over the highest heat until it shimmers. Fry the beef in two batches, 60–90 seconds each, until just browned but not cooked through. Remove to a plate.

1 tbsp oil

Add the remaining oil. Toss the ginger and garlic for 30 seconds until fragrant, then add the snow peas with a splash of water and stir-fry for 1 minute — they should stay bright green and snappy.

1 tbsp oil3cm ginger2 cloves garlic200g snow peas

Return the beef with the oyster sauce and another splash of water. Toss for 30 seconds until everything is coated and glossy.

2 tbsp oyster sauce

Serve immediately over steamed jasmine rice, while the snow peas still have their snap.

Appears in

In every beef share — Round Steaks (~460g)

Your Farmer CSA grass-fed beef share — vacuum-sealed steaks, roasts, mince and sausages, paddock-to-plate NSW & ACT delivery
CSA Grass Fed Beef Share
From $176.67

The Right Cut for the Wok

Every share includes round steaks, and this is one of the jobs they were born for. Round is a hard-working leg muscle — lean, fine-grained, with a grain you can actually see running through the meat. Slice across that grain and you shorten every fibre, which is the difference between tender strips and chewy ones. It's the single most important knife decision in this recipe. Because Your Farmer® beef is 100% grass-fed and lean, the soy-and-cornflour toss matters too: it protects the strips in the fierce heat and turns the pan juices into that glossy, clinging sauce. Ten minutes in the fridge firms the steaks up if you want extra-neat slicing. Cook in batches — pile the wok too high and the beef stews instead of searing. And if you don't own a wok, don't let that stop you: your widest frying pan over the biggest burner does the same job, as long as the batches stay small.

Swaps and Variations

Topside strips from the same share behave identically — we use them the same way in our topside and broccolini stir-fry. Sugar snaps, broccolini or gai lan can stand in for the snow peas, and a spoonful of chilli oil at the end wakes the whole thing up if the small people at your table allow it. No oyster sauce? A tablespoon of hoisin plus an extra dash of soy gets you close. And when summer comes around, the same across-the-grain slicing turns round into a cracking Thai beef salad.

Storage and Leftovers

Stir-fry is best eaten the night it's made, but leftovers keep in the fridge for 2 days. Reheat hard and fast in a hot pan rather than the microwave — steaming softens the snow peas and overcooks the beef. The best leftover move: toss the lot through fresh egg noodles with a splash of water for a five-minute lunch. If you've cooked extra rice, cool it fast and get it into the fridge within the hour — leftover rice deserves the same respect as the beef. If a weekly rhythm of good beef strips, steaks and slow-cooking cuts sounds like your kind of meal planning, that's exactly what our beef subscription delivers.

Frequently asked questions

How thin should I slice the beef?

Aim for about 5mm, always across the grain. If the steaks are slightly firm from the fridge they slice much more neatly — 10 minutes in the freezer works too.

What does slicing 'across the grain' actually mean?

Look for the direction the muscle fibres run — they look like fine parallel lines. Cut perpendicular to those lines so each strip contains short fibres rather than long ones. Short fibres mean tender beef.

Can I substitute the oyster sauce?

Yes — a tablespoon of hoisin plus an extra dash of soy sauce is the closest swap. Kecap manis works too but is sweeter, so hold back any extra soy until you've tasted it.

Why cook the beef in two batches?

A home stove loses heat fast when cold meat hits the pan. Half the beef at a time keeps the surface hot enough to brown the strips instead of stewing them in their own juices.

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Vendor:Savill Family Pastoral

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