Xingyi beef pot is a… unique way of eating beef. Before going to Xingyi - a town in southwest Guizhou close to the Yunnan border - I’d never really seen anything like this before. This is what it looks like:
Now, we’ve covered hotpot a number of times before.
We’ve also covered ganguo (干锅), or ‘dry pot’, as well.
This dish is… a combination? Think of how sometimes hotpots have a divider that separates into a spicy side and a non-spicy side - it’s a bit like that, but only a mix of ‘wet’ and ‘dry’.
At its core, it’s basically a ganguo of stir fried beef – but it’s made using a particular cut of beef that can handle longer cooking times reasonably well (more on that a bit later on). The hotpot in the center is made from a simple beef stock, and is treated much in the same way as you would hotpot elsewhere – use it to blanch greens, thinly sliced beef, etc – with an interesting exception.
To go along with the pot, one mainstay is a big plate of mint. What you’ll do is quickly blanch a bit of mint in the stock, to eat right alongside your sizzling beef stir fry. It adds a predictable hit of freshness to what’s a stir fry of some pretty fatty beef, together with subtly flavoring the soup itself as the meal winds on.
It’s just… a fun meal.
But still, with all of that said, what’s probably the obvious question is still out there lingering: why even bother with this whole ‘double pot’ set-up at all?
A Bit of Context
While I have my own personal theory for ‘why double pot’, this’s a question that I honestly still don’t have a fantastic explanation for. But maybe a bit of context might help.
Xingyi itself is a small, walkable city that’s tucked in the Southwest of the Guizhou province, close to the Yunnan border. In a province known for its imposingly rugged highlands, Xingyi is right in the thick of it – carved against some (pretty stunning) karst formations, it was an area that was famously difficult to access for much of its history. In the past, it was a major population center of the Bouyei people – a Tai-speaking Zhuang group famous for its centrality in the Nanlong Uprising (Zhongjia is another name for the group). While these days the vast majority of the city’s population is Han Chinese, the lingua franca is still the dialectal Xinan Guanhua – Southwest Mandarin – not the Standard Mandarin you might be more familiar with (often people will lead a conversation apologizing that their Standard Mandarin is not very good).
It's a very good place to eat, although it’s definitely one of those places where the wet markets might be just as striking as the restaurants. Put simply, this corner of the country – Southwest Guizhou and Northwest Yunnan – is simply incredible when it comes to ingredient quality. The pork is right up there with the best we’ve ever had (the Hakka city of Meizhou would be the other contender), and the beef might be ever better.
The second thing to understand about Xingyi beef pot is where its sold – Halal beef shops. Because the Bouyei aren’t the only minority group in town: the Muslim-Chinese Hui people are also quite present. They’re a group that’s that you can find in pockets all around Guizhou and Yunnan – unlike a lot of groups, they didn’t really ‘clump’ in one region or the next, but instead seem to be spread pretty evenly throughout the southwest. Historically, they carved out a niche as traders and muleteers: their caravans criss-crossed and connected towns not just across Southwest China, but well into highland Southeast Asia. Hui trade routes left an indelible mark on the region, one that extended past the Hui community themselves. David G. Atwell, author of The Chinese Sultanate: Islam, Ethnicity, and the Panthay Rebellion in Southwest China, explains it pretty well:
Forced to negotiate a complex series of tolls and transit permits imposed on the caravans by non-Chinese ethnic groups, the Haw [Hui] became extremely familiar with the region's networks, allegiances, and political entities. This resulted in a "Yunnan world" comprising the Hui and those ethnic groups affected by or involved in trade with them. This world, which extended far beyond the formal borders of the imperial frontier, had considerable economic, political, and ethnic integrity well into highland Southeast Asia. [pg. 49]
And all across this ‘Yunnan world’ forged by those Hui caravans, you can find… beef. The breed of cow is a smaller sort of Southern Yellow fitting the rugged geography of the region (in Xingyi’s is specifically known as the ‘Panzhou yellow’), and some of the most famous dishes in the region are beef dishes:
And perhaps the most beloved beef dish of all is Niuganba, a sort of jerky that’d fuel the muleteers of the aforementioned caravans. Want to strike up a conversation in Yunnan? Just ask people which town produces the best one (and why it’s probably their hometown). From places as disparate as Xingyi and Chiang Mai, you can find that same jerky hanging up handing up in Hui beef shops:
So the thing to understand about the restaurants that serve Xingyi beef pot is that it’s often not just the aforementioned double pot that’s served up – though it is the probably most classic. There’s hotpots ranging from clear soup to mala to yellow braised, with the predictable hotpot smorgasbord – albeit with a beef focus, of course. And for breakfast? They’ll sell some beef rice noodle soup.
At their core, these restaurants sell beef - of the high quality sort. The vehicle of consumption, while not unimportant, is a secondary concern.
So, I think double pot likely formed as a way to sell people a dry pot (which is absolutely delicious for this cut), while still letting people order additional beef, tripe, and other parts if they’re in the mood for some diversity. Because after all, if you’re at a purveyors of high quality beef, you might just want to try a little bit of everything - not just the cut that’s used in the dry pot.
…about that Cut of Beef Though
So right.
This was one of the most difficult thing to put together about this recipe, because for the dry pot the cut is important. While there’s a couple that you might see a restaurant reach for, the most commonly seen one is one called “墩子” (dūn zǐ). It’s a cut that’s nice and fatty, reasonable to eat after a brief fry, but gets incredibly tender as the pot bubbles on.
Unfortunately for us, “墩子” is a hyper-local name specific to that exact pocket – it’s not the type of thing that’s even searchable, even in Chinese. Talking to some butchers in the area, they said it was from ‘around the butt’, which was a helpful enough starting point but not very… exact (pretty much any variety of round turned out super ‘meh’).
After a frustrating amount of digging and a good dash of trial and error though, thankfully, we were able to find it.
It’s… Picanha. The same Picanha that’s the staple of barbecue joints all across Brazil.
Also known as ‘rump cap’ or ‘culotte’, this is a cut that – according to my understanding – unfortunately doesn’t really exist in the United States (where the fat cap is generally trimmed off). So while we used Picanha in the video, any cut that could serve a similar function should work ok. After some discussion, our Patreon/Substack Discord settled on an American-style cut of either Tri-tip or Chuck Steak.
Xinyi Beef Pot
Two quick notes before we get into it.
First, while we were able to find the exact sort of inside-outside hot pot that they use in Xingyi on Lazada (the Thai Amazon), and I was able to find it on Amazon too, the thing has zero reviews and it feels like it might be a gamble. So definitely feel free to use a standard yuan-yang divider hotpot for this as well - we tested it, obviously no issues there. You could also just separately serve up a dry pot and a hot pot too.
Second, just a heads up that the ‘seasoning mix’ we settled on below was a bit of our own recreation. The exact seasoning mix for the pot will likely vary restaurant to restaurant, but finding example mixes to go off of proved to be even more elusive than the cut of beef used. So our was based off our own understanding of Guizhou food – what we went with was a bit similar to the seasoning mixes used in neighboring Shuicheng (for their grill pot) and Qujing (with potatoes), and seemed to hit the right note in the end. But it could be slightly off.
Let’s go over the dry pot first, and toss you a recipe for the soup afterwards.
Ingredients, Beef Stir Fry
For the seasoning powder:
Red, fragrant chili, e.g. Guajillo, Erjingtiao (二荆条), Kashmiri, ~12g, toasted then ground
Hot, spicy chili, e.g. Heaven Facing (朝天椒), Tientsin, Piri Piri, ~3g, toasted then ground
Sichuan peppercorns (花椒), toasted then ground
Fennel seed (小茴香), toasted then ground
Toasted -or- roasted peanuts, ~1.5 tbsp, ground
Five spice powder (五香粉), 1 tsp
Chicken bouillon powder (鸡粉), 1 tsp
Salt, 1 tsp
MSG (味精), 1/2 tsp
Sugar, 1/4 tsp
Beef, preferably picanha, chuck steak, or tri tip, 600g
Marinade for the beef:
Salt, 1/2 tsp
Dark soy sauce (老抽), 1/2 tsp
Sichuan peppercorn powder (花椒面), 1/4 tsp
Oil, to coat, ~2 tbsp
Fingerling potatoes, ~400g. Or your potato of choice, though something waxier will work better for the pot (starchier potatoes like russets tend to get too soft).
Oil, for frying, 1/2 cup. Preferably a mix of 50% tallow and 50% oil.
Aromatics:
Garlic, 5 cloves, smashed
Ginger, ~1 inch, smashed
Dried chilis, ~8
Chinese celery (芹菜), 60g -or- Cilantro (香菜), 2 sprig. Chopped.
Mint, to serve.
Additional salt and MSG to season the soup below. Quantity will depend on how large your pot is. For our ~1/2 liter pot, we used 1/4 tsp salt and a pinch of MSG.
Process:
First, prepare the seasoning powder. Over a medium-low flame, toast the chili peppers until fragrant and brittle, ~8 minutes. Also over a medium-low flame, toast the Sichuan peppercorn and the fennel seed until the peppercorn begins to release a touch of its oil, ~3 minutes. Add both to a coffee or spice grinder, grind into a fine powder, and toss in a bowl. Grind the toasted peanuts into a fine powder as well, then add to the ground chili/spices. Mix with the remainder of the ingredients under ‘for the seasoning powder’.
Thinly slice the beef into ~3mm sheets, and mix with the ingredients for the beef marinade. Set aside.
Peel and cut the potato into batons. Smash the garlic and the ginger. Chop the Chinese celery (or cilantro), and prep the mint.
To stir fry, add the oil to a wok and over a medium flame, fry the potatoes. You don’t need to take the potatoes until they’re crispy, just until they soften and begin to blister a bit. Remove the potatoes and drain.
Heat the oil up until ~160C, then add in the beef. As the beef begins to stir fry, it will release a touch of moisture and cause the oil to look a bit brackish. This is normal, just continue to fry. After about ~3 minutes, the beef should be cooked through and you’ll be able to start to see a thin sheen of clear oil forming on the top once again. At this point, add in the aromatics. Fry until the oil has started to become clear once again, 1-2 minutes. Add in the seasoning powder and mix, then add in the potatoes and mix again. Add in the chopped celery (or cilantro), shut off the heat, and after a quick mix, transfer to your pot.
Ladle the soup in the other section of the pot, seasoning it with a bit of salt and MSG. Serve with the mint and any hotpot fixings you like.
Ingredients, Simple Beef Stock
Beef bone, 1 large, cut open
Optional: Beef brisket (牛腩), ~200g. Or just a bit of beef scraps
Water, ~3 liters
Welsh onion, ~5 inch section -or- scallion, 1
Ginger, ~1 inch
Sichuan Peppercorns (花椒), 1/2 tsp
Fennel seed (小茴香), 1/2 tsp
Process:
Add the beef bones and (optional) additional beef into the cool water. Bring up to a boil, skimming as obsessively as you feel led to.
Once you’re content that you’ve gotten most of the gunk out, add the onion/scallion, the ginger, the Sichuan peppercorns, and the fennel seed. Swap the flame to low, and boil - covered - for at least six hours and up to twelve.
After that time, remove the beef and bones (you can reserve the beef for another use). This will likely yield you more than you need for the above hotpot.
Further Reading
I’ve been fascinated with the Yunnan Hui for some time, so there’s a pair of English language books that I’d love to recommend:
The Chinese Sultanate: Islam, Ethnicity, and the Panthay Rebellion in Southwest China, 1856-1873 by David Atwell is one of my favorite books on the topic of the Yunnanese Hui. It’s what I quoted from above, and he keeps Yunnan ‘central’ in a way that many authors neglect to.
The Haw: Traders of the Golden Triangle by Andrew Forbes predictably focuses more on the southern reaches of the Hui trade routes, but is worth checking out even if just for the fantastic collection of pictures of Hui muleteers.