You need: As much beef stew meat as you want to eat for one meal plus leftovers for however many days you can stand to keep eating them (look, I got this recipe from my dad who got it from my aunt who got it from god knows where-- I'm pretty sure it's not a traditional chinese dish! Anyways, point is, we don't measure things in my family, we just make arbitrary decisions about how long we think we might want to keep eating any given dish) Tomatoes White or yellow onions Soy sauce* Sugar optional: cooking oil
Cut the meat into 1/2 to 1-inch cubes. Put it in a large saucepan or soup pot, cover with cold water, bring to a boil. Drain and rinse (with warm water!) in a colander, then dump it back in the pot.
Cut the tomatoes and onions into big chunks-- 1 or 1 1/2-inch is fine because they'll break down. I think I use something like... three or four fist-sized tomatoes and one or two medium-large onions to about half a package of beef stew meat? I'm good at eyeballing but bad at actually figuring out measurements. Anyways, you should have like three times as much tomato and onion as meat. Seriously they'll cook down like crazy.
Optional step: saute the tomato and onion lightly with oil and a little garlic. (My dad told me to do this but... I did it once and never again! And it tastes fine without it.)
Cover the meat with the tomatoes and onions in your saucepan and just douse the whole thing in soy sauce-- you want everything to come out about two shades darker than it went in. Start with about a tablespoon of sugar and go from there, it's supposed to just cut the salty-acidness of that much soy sauce and tomato juice, not turn it into dessert.
Cook it on medium-low heat for a few hours, covered. When the beef is falling apart and the tomatoes and onions have been reduced to their constituent atoms and your kitchen smells delicious, it's done.
Goes well over plain white rice, or if you're like me and too lazy to even make rice, throwing in one or two potatoes (in 1-inch chunks) at the beginning will make it even more filling.
* Your garden-variety Kikkoman should be fine, but if you've got a decent Asian grocery somewhere, keep an eye out for something called 'dark soy sauce' or 'mushroom flavored soy sauce'. It'll be very very dark and almost gritty-looking compared to regular soy sauce-- a lot more viscous, almost sludgy. It's more concentrated so it'll give flavor without adding a bunch of liquid that you'll have to cook off.
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Date: 2010-02-22 09:00 am (UTC)You need:
As much beef stew meat as you want to eat for one meal plus leftovers for however many days you can stand to keep eating them (look, I got this recipe from my dad who got it from my aunt who got it from god knows where-- I'm pretty sure it's not a traditional chinese dish! Anyways, point is, we don't measure things in my family, we just make arbitrary decisions about how long we think we might want to keep eating any given dish)
Tomatoes
White or yellow onions
Soy sauce*
Sugar
optional: cooking oil
Cut the meat into 1/2 to 1-inch cubes. Put it in a large saucepan or soup pot, cover with cold water, bring to a boil. Drain and rinse (with warm water!) in a colander, then dump it back in the pot.
Cut the tomatoes and onions into big chunks-- 1 or 1 1/2-inch is fine because they'll break down. I think I use something like... three or four fist-sized tomatoes and one or two medium-large onions to about half a package of beef stew meat? I'm good at eyeballing but bad at actually figuring out measurements. Anyways, you should have like three times as much tomato and onion as meat. Seriously they'll cook down like crazy.
Optional step: saute the tomato and onion lightly with oil and a little garlic. (My dad told me to do this but... I did it once and never again! And it tastes fine without it.)
Cover the meat with the tomatoes and onions in your saucepan and just douse the whole thing in soy sauce-- you want everything to come out about two shades darker than it went in. Start with about a tablespoon of sugar and go from there, it's supposed to just cut the salty-acidness of that much soy sauce and tomato juice, not turn it into dessert.
Cook it on medium-low heat for a few hours, covered. When the beef is falling apart and the tomatoes and onions have been reduced to their constituent atoms and your kitchen smells delicious, it's done.
Goes well over plain white rice, or if you're like me and too lazy to even make rice, throwing in one or two potatoes (in 1-inch chunks) at the beginning will make it even more filling.
* Your garden-variety Kikkoman should be fine, but if you've got a decent Asian grocery somewhere, keep an eye out for something called 'dark soy sauce' or 'mushroom flavored soy sauce'. It'll be very very dark and almost gritty-looking compared to regular soy sauce-- a lot more viscous, almost sludgy. It's more concentrated so it'll give flavor without adding a bunch of liquid that you'll have to cook off.