Chinese

During Winter months, I feel particularly uninspired by salads. I need my starch — and my steak, too. That's what led me to create this Asian noodle salad with flank steak: it's hearty enough to keep you satisfied, even on the coldest of nights, but it's a nice departure from a warming but heavy meat-and-potatoes meal.

The star of the show is the flank steak, which can be substituted with ahi tuna or tofu if you want to avoid red meat. The key to making fantastic, umami-rich steak is to give it enough time to marinate: the beef soaks up the salty, gingery flavors, plus fibers in the meat make room for ginger, garlic, and coriander. Pair the beef with al dente rice noodles and fresh lettuce and herbs, and there's no chance of walking away from this salad hungry.

Keep reading for the recipe.

Have you met bok choy? If not, get yourself to the nearest supermarket posthaste, and snap up a bundle. Slightly sweet and grassy in flavor, the Chinese cabbage takes well to a host of flavors, but easily my favorite way to prepare it is conveniently simple, without sacrificing a lick of flavor.

While there are many reasons to love this weeknight-friendly side — it's affordable, easy, quick as all get out, and, most importantly, delicious — what I love most is how such simple ingredients translate into a dish far more exciting than one would assume on the outset. Little more goes into this loose recipe of sorts than the vegetable at hand, oyster sauce (a magical ingredient if there ever was one), sriracha, soy sauce, and sesame seeds, but a quick turn in a screaming-hot cast-iron takes it to the next level by imparting an essence similar to wok hei, a wok-imbued flavor prized in Chinese cuisine.

What are you waiting for? Make the simple yet satisfying side tonight

The first thing I learned to cook was scrambled eggs, followed by macaroni and cheese. I'm pretty sure the third thing I learned to cook was beef and broccoli stir-fry. My best friend growing up (who, 22 years later, is still my best friend) is Chinese, and her dad would make the most incredible stir-fries using very simple ingredients.

Growing up, we'd beg her father to tell us exactly how he prepared his beef and broccoli. How much soy sauce did he put in? For exactly how long did it need to marinate? And what's the trick to stir-frying so swiftly with chopsticks? He always shrugged at our questions and responded with ambiguous answers, so we resorted to watching him intensely to understand the process. Years later, every time we munch on our attempted beef and broccoli dish, we taste a glimmer of her father's famed flavors, but we've decided it may require a lifetime before we've mastered it.

Even this rendition is a far cry from her father's. When I called my best friend for exact details to the recipe, I realized she has inherited her father's fashion. She vaguely replied, "Oh, you could add a little of this and a pinch of that. These ingredients are optional, of course. It's whatever you feel like."

What I felt like creating is the most basic marinade, but three simple ingredients magically transform into a rich, flavorful sauce for the beef. The standout ingredient has to be oyster sauce. Despite its somewhat repulsive name, it gives dishes a salty, earthy, almost mushroom-like flavor. I adore it. Also worth mentioning is peanut oil. Although a bit more expensive than canola oil, it is so worth the splurge. Unlike neutral oils, peanut oil imparts a subtle, nutty flavor to the stir-fry. If you're allergic to peanut oil, use a neutral vegetable oil to stir-fry and splash a few dashes of roasted sesame oil into the finished dish to achieve a similar effect. Click here to see the beef and broccoli recipe.