Sichuan Boiled Beef

Introduction

Sichuan Boiled Beef, also called Poached sliced beef in hot chili oil (Simplified Chinese: 水煮牛肉; Traditional Chinese: 水煮牛肉; Pinyin: shuǐ zhǔ niú ròu), is a traditional famous dish, belongs to Sichuan cuisine. The main foodstuff is yellow cattle lean meat with soya shoots, duck blood, meat soup, lettuce or the other vegetables, fine vermicelli. The seasoning condiments are onion, soya sauce, prickly ash, glutamine, cooked rape seed oil, dry chili, chili oil, pepper powder, fermented glutinous rice juice, wet starch, thick broad-bean sauce of Shanxian. This dish is called Sichuan Boiled Beef(poached sliced beef in chili oil) due to the beef is cooked well in boiling chili soup.

The dish is also widely known by a literal rendering of its Chinese name, Water Boiled Beef or Water-boiled Beef (shuizhu niurou), and on English-language menus as "boiled beef in chili oil". The shui zhu ("water-boiled") label refers to the technique of briefly poaching thin slices of meat in a seasoned, chili-laden broth rather than stir-frying them. It belongs to the same family as Sichuan Boiled Fish (水煮鱼) and Water Boiled Pork (水煮肉片), differing mainly in the protein. It should not be confused with dry stir-fried beef dishes such as kung pao–style beef, nor with plain clear-broth boiled beef.

Taste

Spicy

Characteristics

This dish is rich in spicy, smooth and tasty with strong flavor, which has the hemp, spicy and hot characteristics of Chong qing hot pot.

A typical restaurant presentation has a glossy red layer of chili oil over tender, velvety beef slices, with blanched vegetables such as bean sprouts, cabbage or lettuce hidden underneath to soak up the broth. The bowl is usually finished at the last moment by scattering dried chili, Sichuan pepper and garlic on top and pouring over smoking-hot oil, which releases the numbing-spicy (mala) aroma.

In Chinese(Pronunciation)

Simplified Chinese: 水煮牛肉

Traditional Chinese: 水煮牛肉

Pinyin: shuǐ zhǔ niú ròu

Nutrition

Calories (kcal) 94 (Per 100 grams)

Carbohydrate (g) 6.51 (Per 100 grams)

Fat (g) 3.35 (Per 100 grams)

Protein (g) 10.62 (Per 100 grams)

Calories

Sichuan Boiled Beef (Shui Zhu Niu Rou) is estimated to be 94 kcal per 100 grams of calories.

History

According to legend, during the Northern Song Dynasty, in the area of Zigong, Yandu of Sichuan province, people installed a pulley in the salt well and use cattle to extract brine. Most a strong cattle normally can serve for more than half a year and some of them were exhausted in three months. Therefore, there are always some obsolete cattle, and the local salt is extremely convenient to use. So the salt workers slaughtered the cattle, took meat slices, and placed them in salt water with prickly ash and chili to cook. The meat is so tender and fresh that it is widely spread and becomes a traditional dish; this is the earliest "Sichuan Boiled Beef(poached sliced beef in chili oil)."

In Ming Dynasty, chili is imported from South America. People in Sichuan broadly applied chili to cook due to its de-moisturizing function, and at this time chili was applied in Sichuan Boiled Beef(poached sliced beef in chili oil).

Latterly, the cooking method of Sichuan Boiled Beef(poached sliced beef in chili oil) was improved by the chefs, that the sliced beef is not cooked using frying method, but cooked well in spicy soup. This dish is famous and spreads all over China.

Origin

Local tradition in Zigong credits the dish to Fan Ji'an (范吉安), a famous chef of Zigong in Sichuan province; like most single-inventor stories for Chinese dishes, this attribution is folk history that is difficult to verify, and other restaurants have made their own claims to the dish. Chef Fan was good at summarizing experiences in practice of cooking, is insisted in improving and renovating. Originally, the sliced beef was cooked well in boiling water and ate with seasoning condiments that consists of salt, soya sauce, chili and prickly ash. In 30's last century, he upgraded the "Beef in ginseng soup" to "Sichuan Boiled Beef(poached sliced beef in chili oil)" that is a high ranking delicious for principal food and liquor, and becomes a famous dish in Sichuan province with local flavor characteristics.

Recipe

Ingredients

Beef 400g

Lettuce 300g

50 grams of Garlic

1 Allium fistulosum

Ginger 1 small piece

Garlic 5 petals

Moderate amount of starch

10 dried peppers

Cooking oil 10g

3 tsp soy sauce

3 tbsp of cooking wine

3 tsp of bean paste

1 tsp salt

MSG 1/2 tsp

Cooking method

Step 1

Cut beef into slices and mix with a little bit salt, cooking wine and starch

Step 2

Wash lettuce clean and break apart and put into boiling water for a while. Remove and place on the bottom of bowl.

Step 3

Cut garlic shoot into sections, cut onion, ginger and garlic into slices and cut dry chili into sections.

Step 4

Heat the audible oil and add thick broad-bean sauce, onion, ginger, garlic and dry chili, and stir-fry for a while, then add in cooking wine, soya sauce and a bowl of boiled water for short time stew, and finally remove the residues of the thick broad-bean sauce.

Step 5

When the cooking liquor is boiling, put beef slice into pot and add garlic shoot, salt and glutamine. When the cooking liquor is boiling again, pour it on the lettuce.

Recipe 2

Ingredients

1 kg of beef slices

600 grams of beef bone soup

Salad oil

2-3 tablespoons of spicy bean paste

Chili powder

Pepper powder

American celery

Cooking method

Step 1

Sliced beef pickled with soya sauce for one day for complete tasty.

Step 2

Break American celery apart and put on the bottom of pot, and add water at 70%.

Step 3

Put pickled beef slice in after the water is boiling, and cook for a minute.

Step 4

Consequently add chili powder, prickly ash powder and finally spray boiling oil.

Serving and place in Sichuan cuisine

Sichuan Boiled Beef is served as a shared main dish, eaten with plenty of steamed rice to balance the heat. In modern Sichuan restaurants it sits among the mala classics next to Sichuan Boiled Fish, Mao Xue Wang and Mapo Tofu, and it is a standard item on Sichuan menus throughout China and in Chinese restaurants overseas.

Similar Food

• Sichuan Boiled Fish
• Water Boiled Pork
• Mao Xue Wang

See also

• Chong Qing Hot Pot
• Sichuan Boiled Fish
• Sichuan Food
• Doubanjiang
• Fuqi Feipian
• Hot Pot Sauce
• Mapo Tofu
• Mao Xue Wang
• Water Boiled Pork
• Sichuan Hot Pot
• List of dishes (A-Z)