Braised Beef Strips
A Shandong (Lu) cuisine dish with a glossy red hue and tender, flavorful beef. The beef is braised, then sliced and steamed, and finished with a poured sauce.
Ingredients
Beef (whole piece soaked through, blanched, braised, then cooled and sliced into strips)
500 g
Scallions (cut into segments)
10 g
Ginger (sliced)
10 g
Soy sauce (part for steaming, part for thickening the sauce)
15 g
Fine salt
20 g
Shaoxing wine
15 g
Star anise
5 g
Sesame oil (drizzled over the finished dish)
6 g
Starch (wet starch, for thickening)
a pinch
Instructions
1
Cook the Beef
Soak the whole piece of beef in cold water until thoroughly saturated, wash off the blood, then place it in a pot of boiling water to blanch. Remove and rinse off any remaining blood residue. Scrub the pot clean, add fresh water, and put in the cleaned beef along with the scallion segments and ginger slices. Bring to a rolling boil over high heat, skim off the foam, cover the pot tightly, and simmer over low heat for 2 to 3 hours. Once fully tender, remove the beef and let it cool.
2
Slice and Arrange in a Bowl
Trim off the fat skin and any uneven edges from the cooked beef, and cut it across the grain into strips 8 cm long, 3 cm wide, and 0.4 cm thick. Arrange the strips neatly in a bowl with the clean side facing down.
3
Steam
Add soy sauce, fine salt, Shaoxing wine, scallion segments, ginger slices, star anise, and some of the original beef cooking liquid to the bowl. Steam over high heat for 20 minutes, then remove. Discard the star anise, scallions, and ginger, pour out the broth, and invert the beef onto a flat serving plate.
4
Pour the Sauce
Pour the steaming broth into a wok, add soy sauce, and bring to a boil. Thicken with wet starch, drizzle in the sesame oil, and pour the sauce over the beef. Serve immediately.
