Serving
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Braised Beef Taiyuan
China - Taiyuan   -   Taiyuan men niurou
Serves
Effort:
Sched:
DoAhead:		 2 main
***
45 min
Part
From the northern city of Taiyuan, this is simply beef with a sauce. The flavor is quite intense, so it should be served with plenty of rice and a less intense side dish.





1
----
10
1
1/3
1/4
----
1/2
1/4
3
1
1/3
1
1 		#
---

T
c
c
---
T
in
T

c
T
t 		Beef, lean
---- Marinade
Scallions
Cornstarch
Water
Soy Sauce
----------
Sichuan Pepper (1)
Ginger root
Oil (2)
Star Anise
Stock (3)
Rice Wine (4)
Sesame Oil
    Prep
  1. Remove excess fat from BEEF, chill it in the freezer until quite stiff and slice across the grain 1/8 inch or thinner. Cut slices 3/4 inch wide by up to 2 inches long.
  2. Cut SCALLIONS into lengths of about 1-1/2 inches and combine them with all Marinade Items. Stir in Beef and set aside for 20 minutes or so.
  3. Place the Sichuan Peppercorns in a small heatproof bowl. Pour about 1 T Boiling Water over them and let them steep for about 5 minutes. Discard the peppercorns and keep the liquid.
  4. Grate GINGER.
    5. Run   (15 min)
  5. Heat Oil over high flame in a wok or spacious sauté pan. When very hot stir in the Star Anise, then the Beef. Fry stirring until the raw color is gone and any liquid has evaporated (see Note-5).
  6. Stir in Stock, Rice Wine and Sesame Oil. Cover and cook about 1 to 2 minutes until sauce has thickened a bit.
  7. Serve hot garnished with Grated Ginger.
NOTES:
  1. Sichuan Peppercorns are nothing like black pepper, and are now again legally available in the US. See my Sichuan Pepper page for details. In this recipe they aren't so important so could be skipped if necessary.
  2. Oil:   In Northern China (and nowhere else in China) meat is sometimes fried in sesame oil, and the original recipe calls for that. I'm not sure the sesame oil they use for frying is the same as the flavoring oils available here, so I prefer to err on the side of caution and add it as a flavoring at the end of cooking.
  3. Stock:   The stock called for in the original recipe is made from chicken and duck, but any reasonably good stock will do - we are not gourmets of the Imperial Court here.
  4. Rice Wine:   Us a good drinkable Chinese rice wine, the cooking wines are heavily salted and pretty dismal to start with. Lacking that use sake, or dry sherry.
  5. Frying:   The original recipe calls for frying 15 seconds - but that's under high end restaurant conditions in China. There's just no way our kitchen stoves can provide anywhere near that much heat that well distributed.
  6. U.S. measure: t=teaspoon, T=Tablespoon, c=cup, qt=quart, oz=ounce, #=pound, cl=clove in=inch
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