A weeknight dinner for when your monkey is in a lot of stress

This beef stir-fry recipe is one of our favorite recently-rediscovered recipes from How to Cook Everything, the cookbook I would take with me if I was expecting to be stranded on a desert island with a reasonably well-equipped kitchen and a good grocery store. (Hey, it could happen.) (I have a recurring fantasy about cooking my way from cover to cover, a la Julie and Julia. I know. Kinda sad.)

It's actually more like Stir-Fried Onions with Beef when we make it - the really good, sweet, carmelized onions that show up on homemade mjadara and make onions a nutritionally significant part of your meal. There are plenty of health claims related to onions: have been used for medicine for 4,000 years, antioxidants, lower hypertension, blah blah blah. My very favorite claim comes from wiki.answers.com, which states that "onions calms animals down. An owner of a large group of old world primates said that she relies on onions to keep her primates healthy during the winter. Especially when primates have been exposed to viruses or when your monkey is in a lot of stress, onions can be the solutions."

There you go. Can't get a much stronger recommendation than that.

This recipe was in fairly regular rotation until we became addicted to Ginger Chicken, and is a great fallback recipe for weeknights when you want to eat about 15 minutes after you walk through the door. If you've had the foresight to do the slicing in advance and buy pre-minced ginger and garlic, this is a completely realistic time frame. And if you have a fancy-schmancy rice cooker with a preset option, you won't even have to remember to start your rice first.

Stir-Fried Beef with Onions (for when your monkey is in a lot of stress)

3/4 - 1 lb flank steak
2 Tbsp peanut or vegetable oil
2-3 large onions, thinly sliced
1 tsp minced garlic
1 Tbsp + 1 tsp peeled, minced ginger
1/2 cup stock or water
1 Tbsp hoison sauce or soy sauce (we use the gluten-free kind)

Slice the beef as thinly as you can (this is easier to do if the beef is still slightly frozen), then cut the slices into bite-sized pieces. Season with salt and pepper.

Heat a wok or large skillet over high heat until it smokes. Add 1 Tbsp of oil and the onion. Stir and cook until the onions soften and char slightly, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and remove from the pan. Set the onions aside.

Add the remaining oil to the pan, then the garlic and 1 Tbsp of the ginger. Stir and immediately add the beef. Stir every 20 seconds or so until the  beef loses its color, just a minute or two longer. Stir the onions back into the pan. Add the stock or water, the remaining ginger, and the hoisin or soy sauce. Let some of the liquid bubble away for a minute, then serve immediately over rice.