Black Pepper Beef (黑椒牛肉)
Black pepper sauce, a Cantonese classic.
Cantonese black pepper sauce is delicious and a complete paradox of an ingredient. Ask someone in the West, and they’ll tell you it’s Chinese. Ask someone in China, and they’ll probably tell you it’s from the West. The history of the stuff is murky as all hell— all we really know is that it probably came from Hong Kong, and it’s absolute fire with beef.
See, the first form the sauce most likely took was as a way to smother Cantonese-style iron-plate steak, a dish that features prominently in the ever-so-classic Hong Kong-style Cha Chaan Teng. For the unaware, Cha Chaan Teng are joints that serve up a sort of Canto-Western fusion, and you can find those black pepper steaks right there on the menu next to stuff like the Cheesy Seafood Rice or the Spam & Fried Egg Pineapple buns. Then, somewhere along the line, I suppose, some Cantonese chefs further sino-fied things by using that sauce as the base for a sizzling beef hotplate, which became a modern classic of sorts at Cantonese Dai Pai Dong.
So, for this recipe, our local Dai Pai Dong was actually nice enough to let us back into the kitchen to show us the broad strokes of how to make this — and an uncut version of them whipping it up is up here if you’re curious. This recipe is more or less verbatim what they do, but unfortunately, they decided to keep the recipe for their house-made black pepper sauce under lock and key.
Black Pepper Sauce
That said, the good news is that Cantonese black pepper sauce is actually something you can just… buy. The very best brand of black pepper sauce is actually produced by Heinz, which, after some cursory research, seems to be hilariously unavailable outside of Asia.
What you’ll probably be able to find is the brand Lee Kum Kee—and while we don’t want to be snobs about this, in our personal opinion theirs is pretty mediocre. So, for any obsessives out there, we also wanted to show you how you could alter it to get it closer in taste to what you’d get outside. And of course, for the true obsessives, here’s how you can make the stuff from scratch at home:
Homemade Black Pepper Sauce:
Whole black peppercorns, 50g.
Douchi, Chinese Fermented Black Soybeans (豆豉), 15g.
Aromatics:
White onion, ⅛.
Shallot (干葱), ½.
Garlic, 4 cloves.
Fresh mild chili, ½. (Something like an anaheim or a poblano would work great.)
Light soy sauce (生抽), 1 tbsp.
Oyster sauce (耗油), 1 tbsp.
Water, 150 mL.
Seasoning:
Sugar, ½ tbsp.
Salt, ½ tsp.
MSG (味精), 1 tsp.
Process:
Pound 50g of black peppercorns in a mortar. Do the same with 15g of fermented black soybeans. Finely mince the aromatics (eighth of an onion, half a shallot, four cloves of garlic, and half a fresh mild chili).
Over medium flame, fry an eighth white onion until translucent; then add 1/2 shallot and 4 cloves of garlic, and finally the pounded douchi and 1/2 fresh mild chili. Add 1 tbsp each of light soy sauce and oyster sauce, and the pounded black peppercorn. Reduce flame to low.
Fry for a minute or two until it's starting to clump together, then add 150 mL of water. Cook until reduced down to a pasty consistency, ~5 minutes.
Season with ½ tbsp sugar, ½ tsp salt, and 1 tsp MSG. Mix well, heat off, jar up.
Lee Kum Kee 'Fix':
Lee Kum Kee Black Pepper Sauce (黑椒汁), 2.5 tbsp.
Whole black peppercorns, 1.5 tbsp.
Douchi, Chinese Fermented Black Soybeans (豆豉), 0.5 tbsp.
Light soy sauce (生抽), 0.5 tbsp.
Seasoning:
Garlic powder, 1/16 tsp.
Onion powder, 1/16 tsp.
MSG (味精), 1/8 tsp.
Note: If you can't find those fermented black soybeans, feel free to skip it.
Process:
Grind or pound 1.5 tbsp of black peppercorns. Pound 0.5 tbsp of Fermented Black Soybeans. Mix everything together with 2.5 tbsp Lee Kum Kee Black Pepper Sauce, 0.5 tbsp light soy sauce, and the seasoning (1/16 tsp garlic powder, 1/16 tsp onion powder, 1/8 tsp MSG).
Cantonese Black Pepper Beef:
Beef loin (外脊肉), 140g. Or flank, or round.
Marinade for the beef:
Papain (嫩肉粉), ¼ tsp.
Water, 2 tbsp.
Salt, ½ tsp.
Sugar, 1 tsp.
Cornstarch (生粉), 1 tsp.
Liaojiu a.k.a. Shaoxing wine (料酒/绍酒), 1 tsp.
Dark soy sauce (老抽), ½ tsp.
Oil, ~1 tsp.
Aromatics:
Onion, ¼. Cut into chunks.
Garlic, 4 cloves. Smashed.
Ginger, 1 inch. Sliced.
Scallion whites, 4. Cut into 2 inch sections.
Green mild chili, ½. Cut into diamonds.
Red mild chili, ½, Cut into diamonds.
Sauce: LKK fix or 3 tbsp Heinz or homemade black pepper sauce, 3 tbsp water.
Cantonese Mijiu Rice Wine (米酒) or Japanese sake, 2 tbsp.
Dark soy sauce (老抽), 1 tsp. Optional.
Slurry: ½ tbsp cornstarch & ½ tbsp water.
Peanut oil, 3 tbsp. 1½ tbsp added in the beginning, 1½ tbsp at the end.
Thinly slice 140g of beef (~2mm), marinate with ¼ tsp papain, 2 tbsp water, ½ tsp salt, 1 tsp sugar, 1 tsp cornstarch, 1 tsp Shaoxing wine, ½ tsp dark soy sauce, and coat with 1 tsp oil.
If passing through oil: Heat ~2-3 cups of oil up to ~150C, max flame, add the beef & fry for ~20 seconds, then dip out and drain.
If doing an oily pre-fry: Longyau with ~4 tbsp of oil, heat oil until it can rapidly bubble around a pair of chopsticks (max flame, ~15 seconds). Stir fry for 30 seconds, or until the beef is at least 90% done.
Cut a quarter of an onion into chunks. Smash four cloves of garlic. Slice one inch of ginger. Cut four scallion whites into two inch sections. Cut the green and red chilis into diamonds. Prepare a slurry of a half tablespoon cornstarch and an equal mount of water.
Heat up a large cast iron skillet or hotplate.
In a wok, longyau with ~1½ tbsp peanut oil. Add the beef together with the aromatics. Then swap the flame to high, quick mix. Add two tablespoons of mijiu/sake over the spatula and around the sides of the wok. Add in the pepper sauce/water mixture. ~15 second fry. Add in one teaspoon dark soy & the slurry. Quick mix. Add in 1½ tbsp oil. Another brief mix, heat off.
Transfer over to aluminum foil, wrap it up. Place on the hotplate, transfer over to serving table.