To make the delicious Braised Black Pepper Beef you begin by marinating the beef, this will make the beef even more tender. Brown the meat and cook slowly in the sauce until the beef is super tender. Serve Braised Black Pepper Beef with steamed rice with a final sprinkle of freshly ground black pepper.
Braised Black Pepper Beef Recipe
Serves 2
Preparation time: 5 minutes, plus 20 minutes marinating
Cooking time: 1½–2 hours
Ingredients:
450g–500g (1lb–1lb 2oz) beef brisket, cut into 2.5cm (1in) cubes
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 large onion, sliced
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 green (bell) pepper, sliced
1 tbsp cornflour (cornstarch), mixed with 2 tbsp water
For the marinade
½ tbsp fish sauce
½ tbsp ground black pepper, plus extra for dressing the dish
3 tbsp oyster sauce
For the sauce
350ml (1½ cups) beef stock
1 tbsp light soy sauce
½ tbsp dark soy sauce
2 tbsp Chinese rice wine (Shaoxing wine)
1 tbsp brown sugar
Method:
Begin by marinating the beef; add all the marinade ingredients to a bowl and spend 1 minute massaging them into the beef. This process will help break down some of the muscle fibres, making the beef even more tender. Leave to marinate for 20 minutes.
Place a heavy saucepan over a medium-high heat, add the oil and then the marinated beef. Once browned on all sides, remove the beef and set to one side.
In the same pan, add the onion and cook until browned, then add the garlic along with the green pepper and cook for a further 1 minute or until fragrant. Now add the sauce ingredients, deglaze the bottom of the pan and return the browned beef to the pan. Once the sauce begins to come up to the boil, reduce the heat to very low, cover and cook for 1½ hours, or until the beef is super tender. (If your sauce begins to evaporate during this time, add more beef stock.) To finish, give the cornflour mixture a stir and slowly pour it into the sauce, stirring at the same time. Once the sauce thickens, switch off the heat.
Serve on top of freshly steamed rice with a final sprinkle of freshly ground black pepper.
This is an edited extract from Chinese Made Easy by Kwoklyn Wan, AU$45 / NZ$50, published by Quadrille. In stores nationally, photography by Sam Folan.
