Beef Flank and Tendon Stew (燜牛筋牛腩, Man1 Ngau4 Gan1 Ngau4 Naam5)

 

This recipe was updated on 23 Sep 2014. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed.

Beef outside flank (also called drop flank) and beef tendon go together to make a classic Chinese stew. Beef outside flank is a thin cut of meat from the cow with silver skin, which requires long slow cooking to become tender and is available at your local Asian market. The silver skin is an integral part of the stew, so it shouldn’t be removed before cooking! This cut of meat should not be confused with the more common beef flank or flank steak, which is used for stir frying. Beef tendon is tough and requires long slow cooking, at which time it becomes soft and gelatinous, so it’s totally about mouth feel. Chee Hou sauce is the other important ingredient. Chee Hou sauce is similar in taste to hoisin sauce (which can be substituted) and has a slightly spicier taste to it.

Starting with this recipe, I’ve changed the format to include metric measurements and a list of the equipment needed to make the dish. Living in the USA all my life, I’ve always used the English measurement system, so from now on I hope the recipes are friendlier to the rest of the world.

Enjoy!

Sea Cucumber with Shiitake Mushrooms (冬菇海參, Dung1 Gu1 Hoi2 Sam1)

This recipe was updated on 07 Jun 2014. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changes, and metric measurements added.

Sea cucumber is an ingredient usually reserved for special occasions. I remember eating this dish at every birthday dinner for my maternal Grandparents. Sea cucumber also makes appearances at Lunar New Year’s dinners, so this dish came to mind and seemed appropriate as the first recipe for the Year of the Snake.

The ingredient is not only expensive, but in its dried form takes some time to prepare and after rehydration you have to clean out the intestines before cooking. I used to be able to buy sea cucumber already rehydrated and cleaned at my local Asian market, but no more. It is now available frozen, so it needs to be thawed first before cleaning. Sea cucumber can be black or white in color, with the white version more highly prized and more expensive than the black. Another name for sea cucumber is sea slug, which doesn’t sound very appetizing, and it has a firm, jello-like texture (my brother-in-law calls it, “fish jello”). No matter what you call this ingredient, it really is quite tasteless and acquires the flavor of the other ingredients it’s cooked with and the sauce.

Enjoy!

Beef and Bell Peppers with Fermented Bean Curd (腐乳青椒牛肉, Fu6 Jyu5 Ceng1 Ziu1 Ngau4 Juk6)

 

This recipe was updated on 26 May 2014. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed, and metric measurements added.

 

Fermented bean curd is the basis for the sauce for this dish. The bean curd has a distinctive sharp salty flavor that goes well with the sweetness of the bell peppers and the marinated beef. You can use more or less of the fermented bean curd in the dish depending upon your taste.

Enjoy!

Shrimp and Green Beans (青豆角蝦, Ceng1 Dau6 Gok3 Haa1)

This recipe was updated on 02 Dec 2015. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed.

This is an easy and tasty dish to make with ingredients available at your local supermarket. In order to reduce the green bean cooking time, they are microwaved first before cooking in the wok. If you had a restaurant strength burner to cook this dish, that step would not be necessary, but for most home cooks this is an easy way to speed up the cooking of the beans.

Enjoy!

Three Pepper Beef (三椒牛肉, Saam1 Ziu1 Ngau4 Juk6)

This recipe was updated on 04 Aug 2015. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed, and metric measurements added.

This is a spicy combination of three peppers and beef, with one being whole red chili peppers. These chili peppers were dried from my garden and weren’t that hot. While the homegrown dried chili peppers weren’t that hot, they were still very tasty. If you use store bought dried red chilies, they are hot and the quantity used in this dish would likely make your head explode (unless you’re accustomed to that level of heat), so feel free to reduce the amount used.

Enjoy!

Three Flavor Shanghai Noodles (三鮮上海麵, Saam1 Sin1 Soeng6 Hoi2 Min6)

 

This recipe was updated on 02 Aug 2015. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed, and metric measurements added.

I’ve always wanted to make this dish after eating at the local Muslim Chinese restaurant, which serves a dish called Three Flavor Dough Sliced Noodles (三鮮刀削麵, Saam¹ Sin¹ Dou¹ Soek³ Min⁶); the three flavors being beef, chicken and shrimp. I’ve adapted the ingredients to use Shanghai noodles and added a few other ingredients not found in the restaurant dish. Making this dish is more involved than your normal Chinese noodle dish since you need not just one flavor, but all three flavors available at once to make the dish, and it’s rare that I have all three available at the same time. While I had all the three ingredients available, I also made the Three Flavor Fried Rice (三鮮炒飯, Saam¹ Sin¹ Caau² Faan⁶) recipe.

Coin-sized Shiitake mushrooms are available at your local Asian supermarket. If you can’t find coin-sized Shiitake mushrooms, use the normal sized (larger than coin-sized) and cut them into ½-inch (15 mm.) wide pieces. Coin-sized Shiitake mushrooms are more for visual effect in the dish and taste no different than their larger counterparts.

There also are a lot of ingredients, both in number and quantity, used to make this dish. I used double the amount of noodles than I usually use to make noodle dishes, so there was always a question of whether or not my wok could hold everything. In my case, it worked, but this may be too much for your wok or pan. I’ve written the recipe to use only one pound (500 g.) of noodles to reflect the smaller amount. Feel free to reduce the quantity of the ingredients – especially the beef, chicken, shrimp, and noodles – to make this dish.

Enjoy!

Three Flavor Fried Rice (三鮮炒飯, Saam1 Sin1 Caau2 Faan6)

 

This recipe was updated on 04 Aug 2015. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed, and metric measurements added.

Here’s another three flavor (beef, chicken, shrimp) dish that you can get at my local Muslim Chinese restaurant. In order to make this dish you need all three flavors available at once, which can be a problem since you’re likely to make dishes with only one available. Since I made the Three Flavor Shanghai Noodles (三鮮上海麵, Saam¹ Sin¹ Soeng⁶ Hoi² Min⁶) recipe, I had all three flavors available and decided to go for it.

I use Lee Kum Kee brand Premium Oyster Flavored Sauce because it’s the brand I grew up with and has a good flavor. It’s a little more expensive than other brands, but it’s worth the price in my opinion. I once had a weak moment and bought an inexpensive brand of oyster sauce, and was disappointed in the flavor when compared to the Lee Kum Kee Premium brand. So get the good stuff!

Enjoy!