However, there is an old recipe exception. These recipes are detailed, accurate in dosage, and each step is clearly arranged, which is a bit like the SOP of modern food production. This is a "legal" series of recipes.
The term "legal system" refers not to a certain mode of production, but to the general term of "standard mode of production", which may come from the idiom "just do it". This standard may have been officially promulgated. The Book of Qi Yaomin written by the Northern Wei Dynasty has a very detailed record of "Fa Jiu". Later, in the Yuan Dynasty's Complete Collection of Household Articles, it was recorded that mutton was cooked by this method, and sheep lungs were cooked by this method. In the Qing Dynasty's Secret Record of Eating Red, it was also useful to fry and pay ginger by this method.
In the long process of circulation, the word "legal system" gradually has the meaning of "authenticity". In the food book TiaoDing Ji in Qing Dynasty, there is a legal beef:
From the practice point of view, this dish is very similar to the current sauce beef, so this French beef translated into vernacular is actually authentic sauce beef.
Legally produced beef
Sauced beef: 700g beef tendon, 80g soy sauce, 1 tablespoon salt, 35g sesame oil, 300ml yellow wine and 300ml clear water.
Dip: Spiced powder 1/2 tsps, pepper powder 1/2 tsps, half onion, 3 tsps of balsamic vinegar and 2 tsps of vegetable oil.
-Step 1-
Select beef tendon meat, cut it into four pieces evenly, add one tablespoon of salt and 80g of soy sauce, and then add 300ml of yellow wine and 35g of sesame oil. The amount of gravy should not exceed that of beef, and then put it in the refrigerator for pickling overnight.
Second step
The next day, the marinated beef was poured into the pot together with the marinade, 300ml of water was added to the beef, and it was boiled over high fire, and then simmered with minimum fire 1 hour.
Beef foams when cooked. Leave it alone, it will disappear by itself after turning to low heat. The froth in the stew is actually protein separated from the meat. If you stew soup, I hope the soup is clear. You need to get rid of the floating foam, but it has little effect on the sauce beef ~
Third step
Turn off the fire when the beef can be pierced thoroughly with chopsticks, and then let the beef soak in the soup until it is cool.
Fourth step
In the original text, vinegar and spice powder should be added to beef after stewing, but it is not clear whether to add it to soup or directly to beef. According to the experience of making sauce beef, it is unreasonable to add vinegar and spice powder to the soup, so I choose to remove the beef and slice it before adding it.
Shred scallion, let beef cool, slice and plate, spread scallion shreds on the surface, pour vinegar on it, and sprinkle with spiced powder and pepper powder. If you have a bread knife, you can use it to cut beef, so that you can cut beef slices more smoothly.
Step five
Heat two tablespoons of vegetable oil and pour it on the dip. There is no such step in "Dancing Ding Ji", but I tried to add it myself. If dipped in hot oil and stirred, the fragrance will be more intense.
This kind of legal beef is quite different from the current general sauce beef practice. A few years ago, I made my own sauce beef. Interested friends can click on the link below to have a look again ~
It is a practical skill to marinate beef in sauce overnight. When cutting beef, you can feel that the meat quality is more elastic than ordinary sauce beef. Although there is not much spice, beef has absorbed enough sauce flavor, and it has a particularly rich meat flavor when chewed in the mouth. The sauce is full of flavor, and the spices that don't grab the flavor are used as ingredients. This officially certified sauce beef can really afford the word "legal system" ~