Recipe: Taiwanese Braised Beef 紅燒牛肉
Disclaimer: that capsule above is a vitamin pill. I repeat, that is a vitamin pill. I swear, really.
Anyways, now that that's over with, we can talk about the real order of business: TAIWANESE BRAISED BEEF.
This is a dish that somewhat resembles boeuf bourgignon, but with a cleaner and less complicated flavor. Not that I'm knocking boeuf bourgignon, because I love boeuf bourgignon, but it is honestly too much of a hassle to make sometimes, and the ingredients are about as plentiful as the processes in the recipe. Taiwanese braised beef is a nice alternative for a hot beef stew dish, and can be eaten over rice, or the broth can be thickened and made into a noodle soup.
Now, without further ado:
[Taiwanese Braised Beef 紅燒牛肉]
-serves 2-
Ingredients:
Meat and Veg
• 1/2 lb beef tenderloin, in 1 inch cubes
-Ideally you'll be using a cut that is high in fat and ligament, if not then beef chuck will work too. That would also provide a leaner option, but keep in mind all the fat content gets rendered out and skimmed off anyways. The fat and ligaments are more there for texture and flavor.
• 2 carrots, peeled and roughly chopped in about 1 inch segments
• 1 daikon (white Japanese radish), peeled and chopped into cubes or wedges
• 1 large yellow onion, sliced
• 1 sprig green onion, roughly chopped
• 1 clove of garlic, roughly minced
Spices and Condiments
• 1 whole star anise
• 2 thin slices of old ginger
• 1 Tbsp. of Chinese chili bean paste (doubanjiang)
- If you like an extra kick, you can add in another Tbsp. of chili garlic paste, like we did/
• 1/4 cup Chinese rice wine for deglazing
• 1 cup of soy sauce
• Leftover beef braising liquid or 1&1/2 cups of water
-read on if you're confused about this, I'll explain, I promise
Another disclaimer: You'll probably want to make this the day before you are going to eat it.
First thing you need to do is blanch the beef. I've read several different recipes that ask you to do either this, sear the beef before hand, or just saute the beef with the aromatics. I personally opted for blanching because apparently it gives you the clearest soup because all the scum is boiled out in this process.
So drop all your beef cubes into a pot and cover with cold water, then set that on a lowly-heated hob and let it come to a simmer. As it cooks, you'll notice scum start floating to the top, so just skim that off whenever you get a minute. Or five. It's actually quite a tedious process.
Next step is to prepare the veg bits. I added in another half of an onion later on because I decided we simply did not have enough, so I added more. Yes, life is that simple. But just do the necessary cleaning on the onion, garlic, ginger, and spring onion, and chop them up as such: onions into slices, ginger into 2 thin slices, garlic roughly minced, and spring onion roughly chopped. I then placed all the aromatics together on one plate as to facilitate the mise process.
The carrot chopping is pretty straightforward, and so is the daikon. However, the daikon can get quite large in diameter, so sometimes I just chop them in half so they're kind of in crescents. You can kind of see one right there below.
Remember, All while this is going on, your beef is slowly simmering away and spitting out lovely brown bubbles. These are its bloody juices and fats, and this is the stuff you don't want in your finished products. You can use either a skimmer or a spoon to carefully ladle the scum out into a bowl, and watch that you don't take out too much of the actual liquid broth itself as you go.
You might need to do this several times over the course of the cooking, so some patience is needed. This is also a good job to assign to a lowly kitchen aide who INSISTS on being there when you cook. You all know which kind of person I'm talking about. Sometimes they're actually helpful, sometimes they're just annoying, but this is a good task to assign to either category as it is simple, but important, and it keeps them out of the way.
Heat up a stewing pot and add some oil, preferably pork lard, but olive oil or vegetable oil will work fine. Once the oil is hot, then throw in the aromatics, onions first. I usually do onion first when it comes to these instances because they take the longest to cook through, but it honestly doesn't matter much. It's just a force of habit.
But throw in the onions, spring onions, and garlic into the pot and saute everything around a little bit. Once you can smell these ingredients, then throw in the ginger and the star anise. If you notice the pot getting browned on the bottom, just throw in some rice wine and scrape the brown bits with a wooden spoon. Why a wooden spoon? So you don't scratch the lining of the pot.
So this was the setup I had, with the beef boiling on the back burner and the sauteing done in the front. Once the meat stops releasing the scum, just pop the cubes out of the pot one by one and drop them into the already sauteing mixture of aromatics. DO NOT GET RID OF THE LIQUID. This liquid has collected all the flavor of the meat, so we will use that to add to the stock later.
See what we did there? We just made a make-shift stock. And we're saving water. Waste not.
At this point, you should've used up all your rice wine to deglaze the pot, but if you haven't just go ahead and pour all of it in. Toss everything around so the flavors slowly meld together in a harmonious sizzle of bliss. If you're wondering at this point why we haven't thrown in the carrots and the daikon yet, that's because they're the "meltiest" of vegetables, and will fall apart over long periods of stewing. We do not want this to happen, so they will join the medley later on.
Now, for the spices. The most basic of recipes calls for soy sauce and tomato paste. Fletcher and I decided we didn't want to have too much of the fruity acidity from the tomato, and craved instead a hit of heat from the doubanjiang (chili bean paste) he had in his fridge. I also decided to up the ante and add a tsp. of chili garlic paste for good measure. My current recipe calls for 1 cup of soy sauce, but feel free to go lighter or heavier, and you can adjust this later on in the stewing process. We had to add about another 1/2 cup of soy sauce towards the end because our stew needed just that tiniest bit more salt.
Throw all of these ingredients in and stir all the meet and veg around until everything is well coated. The pastes especially can end up being a little chunky, so just smooth it around the pot until it is mixed with the soy sauce. You could also opt to make a soy sauce/chili bean paste/chili garlic concoction and mix everything in a bowl first before you pour it in, but it really doesn't make that big of a difference at all.
Once everything is all stirred through, add all of the beef boiling liquid to the pot. That should give you just the perfect amount of liquid to cover and soak through all the ingredients. Give that a stir, and turn the heat onto low if you haven't done so already. I wouldn't recommend a taste test at this point, because all the chili oil is just sitting there in all its poignant glory, and you might be in for more heat than you originally imagined.
Yes, I am speaking from personal experience and think that my advice is indeed sound in this regard.
Put the lid on the pot and let everything simmer. By this time your kitchen should be smelling pretty darned good, but don't let it tempt you into eating it. You will want to wait for the final product, trust me on this. It's worth it. I didn't really put a clock on this process, but it's not that important since the stew has a few more phases to go through.
You're probably thinking: "Why, Vicky, this is not uncomplicated at all! You promised that this was going to be easy!" My answer to you is that I said it was less complicated than boeuf bourgignon. Really all that's complicated is probably all the odious language you've had to drag your eyes past in this post, so hate on me, not the recipe. So there.
About 10-15 minutes of letting everything stew, you can now remove the ginger and star anise and gently stir in the radish and carrots. Let that go for about for about another 20 minutes or so. Now turn off the heat, and let the whole thing cool down. Once the pot is cool enough - about another 20 minutes or so of waiting - put the lid on and carefully move it into the fridge. I put it on the bottom rack just in case there was any spillage.
Leave the stew in the fridge overnight, or at least for a few hours, so that all the floating fatty bits on top congeal. Once this is done, take the pot out of the fridge and very patiently skim off all the congealed fat bits off the surface. Depending on what cut of meat you use, this may be a great deal, which is actually easier to deal with because everything just comes out in big chunks.
This step makes all the difference in the world, because you end up with a nice hearty stew that is also clear and smooth with low fattiness. That's always good.
Slowly warm up the stew over low heat about 20 minutes before you want to serve it, and once you can smell all the beautiful smells wafting from it, it's ready to eat! Make sure you adjust for seasoning too if you want it a little spicier or saltier. I recommend ground white pepper for heat at this point.
Serve over rice or noodles, and enjoy!
----
• 2 carrots, peeled and roughly chopped in about 1 inch segments
• 1 daikon (white Japanese radish), peeled and chopped into cubes or wedges
• 1 large yellow onion, sliced
• 1 sprig green onion, roughly chopped
• 1 clove of garlic, roughly minced
Spices and Condiments• 1 whole star anise
• 2 thin slices of old ginger
• 1 Tbsp. of Chinese chili bean paste (doubanjiang)
• 1/4 cup Chinese rice wine for deglazing
• 1 cup of soy sauce
• Leftover beef braising liquid
1. Blanch the beef in pot, start off with cold water covering the meat about 1 inch.
2. Heat up a dutch oven with some oil, and sauté all the aromatics (onion, green onion, garlic) until soft, then add star anise and ginger.
3. Deglaze dutch oven with bits of rice wine, and keep in mind to skim the scum off the beef.
4. Once beef stops releasing scum, scoop into vegetable mixture and stir in well.
5. Add in soy sauce and chili bean paste, mix thoroughly.
6. Pour in leftover beef braising liquid, cover pot, and let stew for about 20 minutes.
7. Add in radish and carrots, stir through, remove anise and ginger, and let sit for another 20.
8. Turn off heat and let pot cool off. Once pot is cool then move to fridge and let sit overnight.
9. Remove pot from fridge and skim congealed fat off the surface.
10. Heat over small flame, and serve over rice or noodles!
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