According to legend, Yuan Zhen, a famous poet in Tang Dynasty, went to a wine shop for a drink one day when he was a Sima in Tongzhou (now Dachuan, Sichuan). A kind of beef slices in dining tables is ruddy and shiny, which is very pleasing to the eye, spicy and delicious. After eating it, it is crispy and self-melted without residue, and its aftertaste is endless, which makes Yuan Zhen admire. To his surprise, this beef slice is extremely thin and translucent. When it is held up with chopsticks, the silk texture on the red beef slice will reflect a clear red image on the wall under the light, which is very interesting. He suddenly remembered the "shadow play" prevailing in the capital at that time (now commonly known as shadow play, in which the silhouette of characters made of hides or cardboard was projected on the curtain with lights), which was so similar that he was immediately called "shadow beef" when he was in the mood. So this kind of beef in Dachuan became a famous local product in Sichuan under the name of "Dengying Beef".

Dengying beef is unusual, and its material selection and workmanship are very particular. After a cow is slaughtered, it can only take a dozen pieces of leg key meat and tenderloin, only a dozen kilograms. Cut the meat into very thin slices with a long knife, add grass, clove, tsaoko and more than ten other spices, mix well, spread the meat slices on a bamboo basket, expose to the sun to remove water, put them in a special oven, control the humidity and bake them until they are cooked, put them into a bamboo tube or paper can lined with oil paper, mix them with pure sesame oil, sprinkle a little pepper powder and seal them. According to records, during the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty, Liu Guangping, the owner of a hotel in Daxi Street, Chengguan, Daxian County, produced the most famous Dengying beef at that time. 1935, this hotel sent Dengying beef packaged in bamboo tubes as a local specialty to Chengdu Qingyang Flower Show, and was rated as a first-class food.

At present, the main producing areas of Dengying beef are Daxian and Chongqing, and the products of the two places are developing continuously, so each has its own advantages. An American animal husbandry expert once said that Dengying beef is not only a delicious food, but also a wonderful handicraft. If the supply can be guaranteed, the price in the international market can be 4-5 times higher than the current export price. However, the production of Dengying beef is limited by the shortage of raw materials.