Sichuan Sauce Fried Beef (酱烧牛肉)
A Sichuan beef dish fried with, well, "sauce"
So with this post, I wanted to teach you how to make a classic Sichuan dish - jiangshao niurou, or sauce fried beef.
Now, my translation of ‘sauce fried’ for ‘jiangshao’ is definitely a bit awkward. The first character does mean sauce, but the second generally implies some sort of simmering process (or, confusingly, sometimes roasting/grilling). The basic idea of this recipe is that we’ll be pre-frying our beef, then simmering it quickly in said sauce. Kind of the closest thing China actually has to that “stir-fry sauce” simmering method that’s popular in the West :)
Before we hop in here though, it should be said that Sichuan isn’t the only province where people sauce-cook stuff. You can find similar dishes scattered throughout the country - I believe it originates in Shandong, but I can’t find too much out there regarding the history. We’ll be doing a Sichuan style because that’s just where I first learned about and fell in love with the dish.
Ingredients:
So classically this whole thing relies on a very specific ingredient – Sichuan-style sweet bean paste – which is that “sauce” that the “sauce cooking” is referring to. Annoyingly, it will be very difficult for you to find in the West – even for us here in Guangdong, we have to buy it online. There is one online retailer in the USA that carries the stuff (“The Mala Market”), but they’re the only ones I’m aware of. Even if you got yourself an awesome Ranch 99 or something, I heavily doubt they’d carry it.
So we set off looking for potential substitutes, and there was a few things that worked. And while you definitely owe it to yourself to pick up some Sichuan-style sweet bean paste sometime in your life, this dish is perfectly delicious with some more easy-to-find alternatives.
Beef, top round (牛霖肉), 350g. Loin would also be ok too, but this dish isn’t overly picky. Anything lean and not overly tough will do the trick.
Marinade for the beef: 1 tsp sugar, 1 tsp cornstarch (生粉), ½ tsp baking soda (苏打粉) -or- papain (嫩肉粉) -or- Kan Sui (枧水), 1 tsp liaojiu a.k.a. Shaoxing wine (料酒/绍酒), 1 tsp dark soy sauce (老抽), 3 tbsp water, ~1.5 tbsp oil to coat. A basic marinade for beef, minus the salt (as this dish is already pretty salty). The dark soy sauce can be substituted with regular soy sauce if you need. You can also add a small egg white to the mix if going the passing-through-oil route.
Your choice of: (1) Japanese red miso (赤味噌), 2 tbsp or (2) Cantonese Mianchi (面豉), 2 tbsp or (3) 1.5 tbsp red miso (赤味噌) or mianchi (面豉), ½ tbsp sweet bean paste (甜面酱), ½ tbsp douchi fermented black soybeans (豆豉) or (4) Sichuan-style sweet bean paste, one pack. Ok, so four choices depending on your level of obsessiveness. According to our taste buds, both Japanese red miso and Cantonese mianchi were much closer to the Sichuan style sweet bean paste than that more-common-abroad Northern Chinese style of sweet bean paste. In our tests, the solely miso or mianchi based versions came out perfectly delicious. A little bit closer though was to combine one of those with douchi and sweet bean paste, if you happen to have those three things all on hand. But of course, the real deal is best if you can find it!
Seasoning liquid: 2/3 cup water, ¼ tsp salt, 1.5 tbsp sugar, 2 tbsp light soy sauce (生抽). Mixed before the frying.
Scallions (葱), 2-3 large. White and green parts separated. Both cut into ~2 inch sections.
Dried chilis, ~15g. Optional, cut into ~1.5 inch sections. Traditionally this wouldn’t have any chili in it so no need if it’s annoying. These days in Sichuan though we’ve seen it with a bit of Sichuan erjingtiao chili… we used Guizhou longhorn chili… but you could use arbols, japones, or cayennes (or skip it).
Onion (洋葱), ~1/6. A sixth of a large onion or a quarter of a smaller one. Cut into chunks.
Green mild chili (青椒), 1. To be cut into wedges. You could use an Anaheim or a Poblano… or even a green bell if you prefer.
Slurry of 1 tbsp cornstarch mixed with 1 tbsp water. Halve this slurry quantity if you’re actually using the traditional Sichuan-style sweet bean paste, as it thickens better than miso (so, ½ tbsp cornstarch if using that kind).
Process:
Ok, so high level overview time.
We’ll be first be pre-frying our beef using either (1) the pass through oil method (i.e. a super brief deep fry), ideally -or- (2) giving it a super brief oily stir-fry. After that, we’ll make our sauce and toss in the beef once it’s simmering, and cook it for a couple minutes.
Pretty straightforward all things considered. You just need to decide which direction you’ll be going with the sweet bean paste sub (red miso or our more complex sub), and whether you want to pass through oil or not.
If going with our complicated three ingredient substitute, mix that up. So when adding the douchi, you’ll really need to smash them against your bowl, and do a bang up job mixing it add together. Depending on the consistency of your red miso, you may need to add a touch of water to help everything come together (~1 tsp). If just going Red Miso or Mianchi (or the traditional Sichuan sort), ignore this and move right on to step #2.
Thinly slice the beef, ~2mm thick. Keyword: thin. Especially with a cut like round, things can easily get chewy if left too thick. If you’re having trouble slicing thin enough, try first tossing the meat in the freezer for 15-30 minutes to have things firm up a bit.
Marinate the beef. First add all the ingredients sans the water and the oil. Mix well. Add the water and vigorously slap it into the beef, ~1 minute. Then add the oil and mix well to coat. Set aside.
Slice the scallions, slice the chilis with some scissors, chop the onions, cut the mild chili into wedges, prepare the slurry and seasoning sauce. Basically the only knife work that might be new is slicing the chilis – after first cutting in half and removing the seeds/ribs, chop at a ~45 degree bias about ~1.5 inch apart to get wedges (you can also twist 90 degrees between cuts like Steph did in the video to get something triangular).
If choosing to passing through oil: over max flame drop the beef in at 160C and cook for ~20 seconds. You’ll need a cup or two of oil for the pass through, assuming you have a round bottomed wok. Then once you’re up to temperature… just quick in and out – drop them in, break them up with chopsticks, take it right out. Let the beef sit in a strainer to let any excess oil drain off.
If choosing not to pass through oil: do a quick ~45 second oily stirfry. You still need, say, 4-5 tbsp of oil for this quantity of beef. Over max flame, heat the oil up until it’s bubbling around a pair of chopsticks. Add in the beef, and stir-fry for ~45 seconds, or until the beef looks basically cooked. Remove, then let the beef sit in a strainer to let any excess oil drain off.
Sauce-cook. So as always, first longyau: get your wok piping hot, shut off the heat, add in the oil – here, three tablespoons – and give it a swirl to get a nice nonstick surface. But don’t turn the flame on just yet! First:
Add the miso/sweet bean paste/our substitute. Give it a quick mix in the oil.
Swap the flame to low. Cook in the oil for ~1-2 minutes. The miso will slightly combine with the oil, but if using the Sichuan sweet bean paste it’ll sort of seize up a bit. That’s ok. Just cook for at least a minute.
White part of the scallion and dried chilis, in. Quick ~15 second fry.
Swap your flame to high. Add in the seasoning liquid (i.e. the water/soy sauce/sugar/salt combo). Mix well, bring up to a light simmer.
Beef, in. Arrange the beef into one even-ish layer, bringing everything up to a boil, ~1 minute.
Let the beef cook in the bubbling sauce for ~1 minute more.
Onion and pepper, in. Cook together for ~15 second.
Slurry, in. Let everything thicken, ~15-30 seconds.
Heat off. Optionally drizzle in ~1 tsp of peanut or toasted sesame oil. Out.
This is pretty awesomely saucy, so you’d be well within your right to eat this alongside some white rice.