This spicy Thai black pepper steak recipe is a delicious Thai beef stir fry. And a great alternative for the classic cream sauce steak dinners. Get ready for some awesome flavor explosions here. Try it!
This Thai black pepper steak recipe brings back great memories.
Well it has been quite a few years ever since we got back home from our wonderful 2 month trip through lovely Thailand. What an incredible experience that was. The food was amazing.
But once we were home again I decided for quite obvious reasons that I should put my Thai influenced cooking tendencies and cravings on hold for a while.
Thailand Trip
Enough is enough.
As much as I love Asian food, and especially Thai food. After two months of eating Thai dishes day in day out for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I don’t have to tell you that sometimes enough is really enough.
We feasted on Thai food for two months on end, can you imagine doing that?
And I had honestly kind with Asian food of had it for a while.
So I drastically cut Asian flavors from our weekly menus. And filled our lunch boxes and dinner table with a good deal of proper home cooked classic recipes.
And lots of local produce and ingredients.
A Food Break
Good old fashioned Belgian dishes!
Meals like savory stews, meat with heavy cream sauces, fatty sausages and mashed potatoes. Cheese, cold cuts, potato salads. Belgian fries, homemade BLT burgers and chocolate cupcakes for dessert. And for breakfast streaks of bacon, fried eggs and beans in tomato sauce.
I can go on for ages like this.
Bring it on, I am ready!
Best Thai Black Pepper Steak Recipe
But then from time to time after a while again I do get a craving for Asian food.
And I am not talking about a couple of days of course. I can really stay far away from Asian food for weeks, even months after I have traveled to an Asian country.
Does that sound familiar to you?
A little change in flavors and weekly dinner sometimes is a very welcome treat for our spoiled taste buds. So I finally picked up the plan again to cook a little piece of Thai delight tonight. It also helps that we have a large Chinese supermarket in town where you can get pretty much everything under the sun.
Whenever I walk past it, that is usually when the IKEA syndrome kicks in.
Asian Supermarket
I go inside ‘just to pick up a portion of red Thai curry paste’.
And I walk out with half of the shelves in my shopping bag.
We ordered this black pepper steak recipe and rice a lot back when we were staying in Phuket, Thailand.
The ingredients are truly very simple and the biggest surprise is that together they create such a flavor climax. That crushed black pepper is amazing.
You could easily prepare this black pepper steak recipe with your eyes closed. I mean, there is really nothing difficult about it. And again I wonder why I had not thought of this great combination before…
Life and its unanswered questions.
Easy Black Pepper Steak Recipe and Rice
This Thai black pepper steak recipe and rice or noodles is a delicious meal.
If you go to a Chinese supermarket often, then you must have seen those jars with Chinese black pepper sauce as well. It is usually right where you can also find hoisin sauce and black bean sauce. And that ready to use black pepper sauce is also a great instant option to make this pepper steak recipe!
Nothing wrong with that, go for it if you prefer that version.
I also like to serve this black pepper steak recipe with a lovely crunchy Thai salad that you might have heard of before: som tum.
It often goes by the name of green papaya salad.
Thai Green Papaya Salad
You can also find this salad prepared with green mango instead of green papaya. But then I have to pay our local Chinese supermarket a visit and hope that they have it that day.
Not that I mind, I love that shop.
But back to our Thai black pepper steak recipe here below.
I truly hope that you enjoy this one!
This spicy Thai pepper steak recipe is a delicious beef stir fry. And a great alternative for the classic cream sauce steak dinners. Get ready for some awesome flavor explosions here.
Dig in before someone else does.
Enjoy!
Best Thai Black Pepper Steak Recipe
- 10,5 oz steak (300 g)
- ½ small onion sliced roughly
- ½ red bell pepper
- 1 tsp garlic paste
- 3 tsp fish sauce
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp oyster sauce
- 2 tsp lemon juice
- 1 tbsp black peppercorns coarsely ground
- vegetable oil
- Slice the beef up into bite-size pieces. Combine the fish sauce, soy sauce, oyster sauce, lemon sauce, garlic paste and crushed black pepper corns. Whisk well and put this mixture aside until needed later on in this recipe.
- Slice the onion and red bell pepper finely. Pour a little drop of vegetable oil in a non-stick pan and place it over high heat. Once the oil starts to smoke a little, add the sliced beef.
- Quickly stirfry the beef for a minute. Then add the sliced onion and red bell pepper.
- Stir again and cook for another minute. Now pour in the peppery fish sauce mixture.
- Take the pan off the heat and stir the beef and vegetables for another minute. Check the seasoning and add extra lemon juice, fish sauce or black pepper to taste if necessary. Scoop the black pepper beef into bowls. Serve the beef piping hot with cooked or steamed rice.
Pepper for Black Pepper Steak Recipe
Pepper is one of the most used seasonings all over the world.
Even a tiny bit of pepper can lift up your meals and bring more depth and heat to it.
The amount you use is up to you. Some like it hot, some don’t. Add it in small amounts to your food and taste as much as you can. You can always add more if necessary.
Using too much pepper in an enthusiastic mood can result in a very unpleasant anticlimax if your food is way too spicy.
Types Of Pepper
There are obviously a lot of types of pepper if you browse your supermarket shelf.
Apparently the timing of harvesting the pepper plant corns and the processing afterwards is essential. Everyone is familiar with black, white and pink pepper. These are the most common types.
Some spices that go by the name pepper are not necessarily real pepper or members of the pepper family. Let’s take a closer look at them.
Black Pepper
Black pepper comes from green unripe corns.
The corns are first blanched in hot water to clean them and then dried in a machine or in the sun. During this process the corns become black and wrinkled. When fully dried the pepper corns are ready for consumption.
Black pepper is considered a bit spicier than white pepper. It is perfect for strong dishes where the peppery flavor really has to stand out like my Thai black pepper steak recipe above. Black pepper is the one I use regularly if not daily.
You can easily keep peppercorns in the cupboard for at least one year.
White Pepper
Fully matured peppercorns are a dark red.
They are soaked in water for about a week. The corns release their thin red coats that can easily be removed by rubbing the pepper. After that the white corns are dried.
White pepper is less strong than black pepper because of the lack of the thin coat containing spicier flavors. White pepper is used for more subtle, light and fragile meals like salads. However it would also be great for my Thai black pepper steak recipe above.
Green Pepper
Green pepper consists of the young and immature berries of the pepper plant.
To maintain the green color and prevent decay the corns are mostly pickled in vinegar or brine and sold in jars. They have a fresh peppery taste and soft texture and are often prepared in (creamy) pepper sauces to accompany meats, for example a steak with cream and green peppercorns.
Dried green pepper can also be found. The corns undergo chemical treatments to keep their color and to avoid them from turning black.
Red Pepper
If the pepper plant is given the chance to fully develop the berries it results in mature red peppercorns. The rest of their story is similar to green pepper: the corns are preserved in jars or dried using the same color-preserving techniques.
Pink Pepper
Although it looks like pepper and it is even named the same…
Pink pepper is not a product of the pepper plant.
It is a family member of the Peruvian pepper tree. The dried corns taste a bit peppery and fruity. They are very aromatic.
Pink pepper is also used as a garnish to brighten up a dish.
Cayenne Pepper
This spicy fellow has nothing to do with pepper whatsoever.
It is made from chilli peppers and dried and ground into a fine red powder.
Szechuan pepper
Szechuan pepper (named after the Chinese region Szechuan famous for its spicy food) is not a type of pepper but closely related to the citrus family. The berries are dried and their fragile skins are roughly ground. It can contain small black pips. If you taste it you might pick up a very light lemony flavor. Szechuan pepper is an important member of the Chinese 5 spice powder.
Pepper Mix
Nowadays you can find different pepper mixtures combining peppercorns and an additional flavor or dried herb such as lemon, garlic, cumin, orange or thyme. They are mainly sold in small ready to use mills that you simply throw away if they are empty. My supermarket even sells a mixture of black peppercorns and coarse salt.
Best Thai Black Pepper Steak Recipe
So back to our recipe above…
This spicy Thai pepper steak recipe is a delicious beef stir fry.
And a great alternative for the classic cream sauce steak dinners. Get ready for some awesome flavor explosions here.
Enjoy!
