Red Braised [Anything] (万能红烧公式)
A formula to make basically... any Red Braised dish. (红烧排骨/红烧千张/红烧土豆)
There's a lot of ways that you can red braise stuff. Usually you're looking at a braise based off of soy sauce, but… sometimes you're not. Sometimes it starts by frying up a sort of caramel called a tangse, but… sometimes it doesn't. Often it includes a mix of spices like cinnamon, star anise and Sichuan peppercorn, but it… doesn't have to. And while the most well known red braise is undeniably pork belly, it definitely doesn't stop there – you can really red-braise whatever you wanna red braise.
So with this post we wanted to give you a simple formula for a homestyle sort of red braise that you can use as a framework to red braise pretty much anything.
In the above video, we show how to apply it with red braised ribs; tofu in the form of red braised tofu, and root vegetable using red braised potato. Of course, do know that this "formula" is definitely far from the only way to approach things, and that like all things in kitchen and in life - you can really do whatever the hell you want.
How to Red Braise [Anything]
Main ingredient, ~350-500g. In the video we had 500g of ribs, 350g of firm tofu, and 400g of peeled potatoes.
Aromatics:
Garlic, 2 cloves. Whole.
Ginger, ½ inch. Cut into slices.
White portion of ~2 scallions. Cut into ~2 inch sections.
Liaojiu, a.k.a. Shaoxing wine (料酒/绍酒), 1 tbsp.
Hot water:
2 cups for meat
1 cup for anything else (meat will need longer to cook, so more will evaporate away during that 45 minute cooking process)
Seasoning for the braise:
Soy sauce (生抽), 2 tbsp.
Dark soy sauce (老抽), ½ tsp.
Sugar, 2 tsp.
Spices: ½ tsp five spice powder (五香粉) -or- your choice of whole spices (below).
Salt and MSG to taste (about ~¼ tsp and ~1/16 tsp respectively), added after reducing.
Slurry of 1 tsp cornstarch (生粉) mixed with an equal amount water. Only add in a third at first & eyeball the thickness.
Toasted sesame oil (麻油), 1 tsp.
Scallion greens for garnish.
Spices to choose from, if using whole spices:
Any combination of the below are incredibly common to see in a red braise. Note that it would not be advised to use all of the below spices, else the red braise will taste sort of... medicinal in a TCM sort of way? If using whole spices, we would suggest using the cinnamon, star anise, and let's say... no more than three more additional spices:
Cinnamon (桂皮), 1/4 stick; Star Anise (八角), 1; Clove (丁香), 2; Dried Bay Leaf (香叶), 1; Whole Sichuan Peppercorns (花椒), 1/4 tsp; Fennel Seed (小茴香), 1/4 tsp; Tsaoko a.k.a. Chinese Black Cardamom (草果), 1; Licorice Root (甘草), 1 pcs; Dried Chili, 1
Process:
Pre-cook your main ingredient:
If using meat (pork, beef, chicken, etc), blanch: add to cool water, bring up to a boil, boil for three minutes, then rinse. For anything else (tofu, potato, eggplant, fish, hard boiled eggs, etc), pre-fry it until 'done'. For tofu, five minutes each side. For Potatoes, ~10 minutes over a medium flame.
Cook the Red Braise:
Smash two cloves of garlic. Cut ½ inch of ginger into slices. Separate the white part from the green part of two scallions - whites cut into ~2 inch sections, greens sliced.
Over a medium flame, fry the aromatics for ~15 seconds. If using five spice powder, add a ½ tsp in here and fry for another ~30 seconds, til fragrant. Then, add your main ingredient - if using meat, you can fry it for a bit longer here to get some browning, 3-5 minutes. Then, swirl in one tablespoon Shaoxing wine.
Add the hot water (2 cups for meat; 1 cup for anything else), 2 tbsp soy sauce, 1/2 tsp dark soy sauce, 2 tsp sugar, and - if using the whole spices - the whole spices.
Cover. Simmer on low until your ingredient is tender. For us, this was 45 minutes for meat and 10 minutes for anything else.
Uncover. Swap your flame to high and let everything rapidly reduce. You're looking for the liquid to get to ~1/3 of the original volume.
Taste, then season with salt and MSG (~1/4 tsp and ~1/16 tsp respectively). Thicken by adding the slurry (1 tsp cornstarch mixed with an equal amount water) in - one third of it at first so as to not overthicken. You're looking for the consistency of a thin sauce. Drizzle with 1 tsp sesame oil, sprinkle over the scallion greens.