Black Pepper Beef

This recipe was given to me by my dear friend Joe Lenora’s mum, Auntie Patricia. Patricia and Joe hail from the seaside city of Negombo. Negombo is a good-time town on Sri Lanka’s west coast, with a big chunk of coastline, a port, a lake, a sixteenth-century maze of canals and, consequently, a whole lot of boats, many of them filled with happy young people dancing to Sri Lankan reggae and swimming in the water.

Negombo also has many beautiful white stuccoed churches and a high density of Sri Lanka’s small but mighty Christian community. Sri Lankan Christians have, in my experience, evaded several common Sri Lankan phenomena. They have tended to evade religious extremism. They tend to have the only short names on the island (an advantage they largely squander by instead having five or six Christian names). And most joyously of all, they seem to have largely evaded Buddhist and Hindu guilt when it comes to alcohol.

And so invariably – like at Auntie Attidiya Panagoda Liyanage Dona Josephine Mary Patricia’s family home in Negombo – you will find rosary beads in the homes of those who produce the island’s best drinking snacks. Auntie P says that people have eaten drinking ‘bites’ with alcohol at parties ever since she can remember, and she was born in the 1930s. In Sri Lankan English, a bite is a big snack, an appetiser, something that should cajole you into a bigger evening than you had planned, to turn your one drink into seven, your quick appetiser into an unnecessary and spontaneous dinner. The key to these is to buy great-quality beef and use a really hot pan so it is cooked perfectly. To paraphrase Ecclesiastes, go eat your black pepper beef with gladness, and drink your beer with a joyful heart.

 

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Instructions

1.	Slice the beef into thin strips and marinate in the salt and black pepper for 30 minutes.
2.	When ready to cook, set a heavy-based saucepan over a high heat and add the oil. When hot, stir-fry the beef for 30 seconds.
3.	Add the onion, curry leaves, chillies, lemongrass, ginger and any juice from the marinade.
4.	Stir-fry for 1–2½ minutes, slicing through a sample piece of beef to check how you like the pinkness of the meat.
5.	Add the vinegar, then remove from the heat and allow to rest for 3–4 minutes before serving.