Is this a dish I've been missing out on?

Time: 2 hours 30 minutes

Difficulty: 2/5

Ingredient Availability: 4/5

This is another Chinese food that I’ve never ordered before from a Chinese restaurant. The name kind of reminds me of the red chicken on skewers that some places have, so that is what I half expected this dish to taste like. The recipe says to use boneless short ribs or well marbled chuck. I thought I picked up chuck, but ended up getting a different beef roast. Let’s see how this recipe from thewoksoflife turns out.

Key Ingredients and Omissions:

This recipe loses a point in ingredient availability because it calls for rock sugar and shao xing wine. While I was able to find the wine, I wasn’t able to find rock sugar anywhere. I found that turbinado sugar, which I already had, was a good 1 to 1 substitute, so that’s what I used. As for the beef that I actually used, it was a top blade roast. I think it worked fine, so if you can’t find chuck or short ribs, just use a decently well marbled beef roast.

Tools:

• Wok with top

• Colander

Cooking Review:

Cube and Boil Beef: 31 minutes

After cutting my beef roast into cubes (5 minutes) I added it to a pot of water along with some ginger slices and brought it to a boil. After boiling for a minute, I drained it using a colander, rinsed, and arranged the beef cubes on a paper towel lined baking sheet.

Searing Beef: 6 minutes

After adding oil and sugar to my wok until the sugar melted, I added the beef to the wok to get some color, which took about 4 minutes. I would recommend using a silicone spatula to work the meat, as the sugar did stick to my wooden spoon.

Braising: 1 hour 15 minutes

The wine and soy sauce were added to the wok next and allowed to cook for a few minutes before the rest of the braising ingredients were added and allowed to braise for about an hour and 10 minutes. It took a while for the wok to come to a slow simmer, so depending on your setup, this may take a little more or less time. Also, you’re supposed to cover the wok while it braises, but I didn’t have a top large enough to cover the top of the wok. I tried to use a top that would sit inside the upper part of the wok, but it just sat on the water line. I decided to use a baking sheet to try to cover most of the top.

Reducing Sauce: 36 minutes

Once the beef had finished braising, I increased the heat to allow the sauce to thicken and reduce. This took quite a while and required more attention as it got closer to being done. Once reduced, I served the beef with scallions sprinkled on top.

Analysis:

This beef turned out very tender, which makes sense considering it had been cut up and braised for a while. The flavor was good, with a good balance of savoriness and sweetness, but I did pick up on a little dryness. The sauce did thicken up nicely, coating the cubes well. Now, as far as the rating, I think I’ll give it a 7/10. I do think the flavor could be amplified a little more with some additional salt or soy sauce in it. Also, given the amount of time this takes, I would’ve like it to be more moist and special in general. Still, this dish isn’t bad at all. There’s just room for improvement.