250g beef

Appropriate amount of cloves, cinnamon and sweet licorice

Zanthoxylum bungeanum, anise and fennel depend on the number of individuals.

Onion, ginger, garlic, salt according to personal quantity.

operational approach

0 1

First, choose the right beef.

To make delicious stewed beef, you must first choose the right beef. Generally speaking, stewed beef should choose beef with tendons or white fascia, which is fat and thin, such as breast, tendon, tenderloin, bow, breast and tenderloin. This kind of meat is best for stewing. After stewing, the meat is soft and rotten, fresh and delicious.

The lean beef with bright red shredded pork looks beautiful, but it is not suitable for stewing. Only suitable for frying, it will be wood when stewing.

02

Second, deal with beef in advance.

After choosing the meat to buy home, wash the dirty things on the whole surface first, then cut it into large pieces and soak it in clean water for at least 30 minutes to 1 hour. Remember to change the water several times in the middle to soak the blood in the meat. When cutting, it must be perpendicular to the grain of beef, and never cut along the shredded pork.

If you are not in a hurry to stew beef, you can take out the soaked beef pieces, drain the water, mix well with dry mustard, and put them in the refrigerator for a day before taking them out for stew. Rinse the mustard before stewing, so that the beef is easy to cook and tender. Especially when you have the misfortune to buy old beef, you must do this.

If time is really too late, just put it in the pot. Although the taste will be worse, as long as other steps are done correctly, the stewed beef is quite good.

03

Third, don't blanch beef.

When many people cook with meat, whether it is willy-nilly or not, boil the pot first. But when stewing beef, don't blanch it. Use a combination of soaking and defoaming to remove blood and other dirty things from the meat. Because blanching or scalding with hot water will lead to the aging of beef meat, which is not easy to stew and tastes dull. If you have to blanch, wait for the beef for firewood.

04

Four, cold water into the pot and boiling water into the pot.

Having said that, it's time to say hot water or cold water. In fact, both hot water and cold water can be used, but there are some differences.

Protein on the surface of beef will quickly denature and solidify when hot water is put into the pot, which can prevent amino acids in the meat from losing to the soup. Meat tastes delicious, but the nutrition in the soup is relatively less and the taste will be worse. Moreover, the hot water in the pot is not conducive to boiling blood and other dirty things, so it must be soaked in water for a long time.

Cooking with cold water can make more nutrients of meat pieces enter the soup, and the soup will taste more delicious, while the process of slow heating is more conducive to blood and other dirty things in cook the meat, but the taste of meat will become worse.

So you can choose whether to cook with hot water or cold water according to your preference.

05

Five, the water should be added at one time.

Beef stew must be filled with enough water at one time, and try not to add water in the middle. If the water is really insufficient, you can only heat it, and never add cold water. Because hot meat will shrink and harden immediately after being stimulated by cold water, it is not easy to boil and will send firewood.

In addition, don't cover the lid to boil after adding water, and then start skimming immediately. If it is cooked for too long, a large amount of foam will deteriorate and sink into the soup, which will lead to the turbid color of the stewed beef soup. The reason why you don't need to cover it first is to let the odor in beef dissipate with the steam, so that the taste will be more pure. The correct way is to stew for 20 minutes and then cover it.

Skim off the floating foam, cover the lid and turn to low heat, so that there is always a layer of floating oil on the noodle soup, which can play the role of stewing and make the beef softer and rotten.

06

6. Order of adding seasoning and salt.

After the beef pieces are put into the pot, the seasoning can be added. Commonly used are clove, cinnamon, sweet licorice, pepper, aniseed, fennel and so on. Onion, ginger and garlic are of course essential, and dried tangerine peel can be added if you like. However, please remember that the salt must be put at the end, at least until the beef can be penetrated by chopsticks, otherwise the beef will easily harden and become firewood.

07

Seven. Other tips.

1, wrap a little tea or some leaves with clean gauze and cook them with beef, which will not only make the meat cooked quickly, but also have a clear fragrance.

2. According to the ratio of 1 kg of beef: 2-3 tablespoons of white wine or 1-2 tablespoons of vinegar, adding some white wine to the pot and stewing together can make the beef more tender and delicious.

3. Put two or three hawthorns, two or three walnuts with shells or seven or eight radishes when stewing beef, which can also make beef soft and rotten faster and remove the fishy smell of beef itself.

4. Adding some acidic fruits or vegetables to beef stew can also make beef stew soft and delicious, such as apples and tomatoes. Papaya, in particular, contains natural meat softeners, which can definitely make beef tender when used to stew beef.

Basically, all the tips for beef stew at home are here, among which 1 to 7 are indispensable and must be done. You can choose one of the 8 items to match the top 7 dozen.