Heirloom beef recipe with five-spice sauce! The chef personally taught the recipe, and once you take a bite, the sauce is rich and fragrant, so fragrant! Spiced beef is a cold dish that often appears on our dining table. The cooked beef is sliced ??into thin slices and served as a simple side dish with vegetables and rice or noodles. Sometimes it is even eaten for breakfast with hot toast or fried dough sticks or these. Scallion pancakes paired with spiced beef are a really enjoyable experience. This is a traditional dish often served as an appetizer at banquets. It may often be made into a cold dish platter with other cold dishes, and this dish is made in advance. The biggest draw of this dish is the delicious sauce that results. Not only do you get perfectly braised beef, but you can also reuse the sauce from the braised beef to create meat and vegetarian dishes.

·You can use this sauce to stew meats: beef legs, oxtails, chicken legs, chicken wings, chicken necks, duck wings, pig ears and trotters, pork bones, almost all meat, these are Turned into a delicious meal!

·Vegetables can also be stewed: tofu, seaweed knots, eggs, lotus root, shredded beans, peanuts and soybeans

If you decide to stew something other than beef shank, don’t forget Adjust cooking time accordingly. Beyond that, here are a few things to keep in mind to make your meat more flavorful:

·I know it can be a challenge to get all the dry aromatics, so I've marked some of the non-essentials as "Available" Select”

·After you’re done making the beef ragout, you should discard the aroma bag, but throwing away the sauce is pretty miserable. Pass it through a fine mesh strainer, bring to a boil, turn off the heat, and allow to cool completely before pouring the sauce into a refrigerator-safe container, where it should keep for a month or two.

·When using stored sauce, you will need to replenish everything (beef shank) to no more than half the original recipe. It is especially important to remember to add salt again to taste. When in doubt, less is better. The sauce will become richer, more flavorful, and tastier with each use as the water-based sauce turns into a soup-based sauce. Of course, you can start by substituting stock for water!

·Never slice the braised beef into thin slices until it is completely cool or chilled. If you try to slice it while it's still hot, the meat will fall apart.

Beef with five-spice sauce

Ingredients:

·2 small pieces of cinnamon

·1 black cardamom

· ? tablespoon Sichuan peppercorns

· 2 star anise

· 8 cloves

· 1 piece of tangerine peel

· 2 bay leaves

· 1 teaspoon whole white (or black) pepper

· 3 dried licorice slices (licorice)

· 1 whole nutmeg

· 1 tablespoon fennel seeds

· 2 pounds of beef shank

· 3 slices of fresh ginger

· Cup of Shaoxing wine

· 5 Cloves of garlic

· 4 green onions, cut into large pieces

· 15 grams of rock sugar (can be replaced with regular sugar)

· Cup of soy sauce

· 2 tablespoons of dark soy sauce

· About 4 cups of water, enough to cover the beef

· About 1 teaspoon of salt to adjust the taste

Method:

1. Prepare a spice bag by first securing all the spices in two tea bags or tying them inside a piece of cheesecloth. It should contain cinnamon, cardamom pods, Sichuan peppercorns, star anise pods, cloves, tangerine peels, bay leaves, whole white peppercorns, dried licorice flakes, nutmeg and fennel seeds.

2. Next, cut your beef shank into 2 to 3 equal pieces. Place the beef shank and ginger in a medium pot and add enough water to cover the beef. Boil and blanch the water until you see a gray film forming on the water. Turn off the heat, remove the beef, rinse it and clean the pot.

3. Return the beef to the pot, add the spice bag, Shaoxing wine, garlic, green onions, rock sugar, soy sauce, dark soy sauce, 4 cups of water and salt.

4. Bring everything to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Let it simmer for 60 to 90 minutes, until a fork can be inserted directly into the beef.

5. Try not to cook the beef for too long, otherwise the beef will become old. Remove the beef and store it, covered, until completely cool before slicing.

6. Alternatively, after the soup has completely cooled, add the beef back to the soup and let the beef marinate in the sauce overnight to enhance the flavor. You can also make a simple dipping sauce of soy sauce, chili oil and chopped green onions to dip the beef.