Beef Shank in Hot Oil 紅油牛腱

Families and Friends, hope y'all had  a lovely day today!  What I'm to show you today is a traditional cold dish, Beef Shank in Hot Oil (usually it doesn't come with hot oil, but I like dipping it with some hot oil. Again I created a twist on the traditional dish to satisfy my picky mouth)lol.

Beef Shank is very tough to eat if it isn't cooked right. There are few ways to cook the shank meat, braised it with tofu stick, noodle soup and slow cooked with herb sauce etc.. Herb sauce is the most popular way cook this chewy shank meat. The best way to serve herb flavor shank meat is slice it very thin and dip it in whatever sauce you like!! Ok enough talking! Let's cook!!

Ingredients

• 2 lbs beef shank(whole pc, boneless)
• 1 herb beg
• 1 big pc ginger(10 slice)
• 2 whole star anise
• 2 green onion
• 1 big pc dried / fresh orange peel(I prefer dried) save the fresh orange peel next time. Just leave it in room temperature, it'll dry up in a few days.

Find a good Chinese brand at your local Asian Market. It has a better flavor than the 'chili oil; you'd buy from the Americanized brands at an American market. Those tend to lean more towards less spice..

They sell this herb packs that are great for making these types of 'stews'. It saves the trouble of tracking down multiple spices which can get expensive overtime...

Seasoning

• 1/3 cup dark mushroom flavor soy sauce
• 1/3 cup oyster sauce
• 2 tbs sugar

Cooking the shank meat

In large pot, fill it with 4 qts of water or enough to cover all the meat. Bring it to a boil and then add in the beef shank with all the ingredients and all the seasonings.

Cover the pot with a lid, wait till it boils again then turn temperature to a medium low for 1 hour and 45 minutes.

Save some of the stew broth after you are finished cooking the meat!!

After the allotted time, turn off the heat, and let the beef set in the pot for another 10 minute. Now take out the beef shank carefully with a pair of tongs, place it on a plate and  let it cool for 30 minutes. Once cooled enough, store it in the fridge for at least 2 hours or overnight. Why you ask? Because this is a dish served cold. The beef shank needs to be cool to  be able to slice it into thin strips. (Some chefs with strong knife skills can slice it as thin as paper. They refer to this as "see through beef.") But, we are doing this home style, so we don't have to slice the beef shank that thin!!! Slice up the beef shank and place it on a plate and dip it with the sesame hot oil!!

Dipping sauce 

2 tbs crisp hot oil( any hot sauce)
2 tbs sauce from the pot (DON'T THROW IT OUT JUST YET!)
1/2 ts sugar
1 ts dark vinegar
1 ts sesame oil
1 ts sesame seed

Making the Hot Oil Dipping Sauce....

In a bowl mix it up evenly for dipping sauce. Why are we make the sauce last this time? bcz the sauce needs a bit of that herb-beef flavor from the stew to be complete. That's it, Beef Shank in Hot Oil 紅油牛腱! Enjoy it!

Coming up next
-Clay Pot Rice-
w/  preserved Chinese bacon, Chinese Sausage and Chicken
-臘味滑雞煲仔飯-




Recommendations
- since this dish need about 2 hours to complete, I recommend cook double amount the beef shank and save some  for the  next couple days
- don't threw the herb sauce, store the sauce in the fridge for whole chicken, wings, qts. whole duck, duck wings, pork, hard boil egg, dry tofu etc.. If the fridge is cold enough, the sauce won't go bad at least a week. If you want the herb sauce to stay fresh and good, cook something with it every other day. The long longer you use the same herb sauce the better flavor it has. the Next time when you need to use the sauce again, just add another herb beg and some more water to balance up the flavor.

1 Peter 5:7

"casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you."


彼得前書5：7

"你們要把一切憂慮卸給　神，因為他顧念你們."

Steamed Prawns with Butter-Garlic and Green Bean Noodle(Bean Vermicelli)蒜茸牛油蒸粉絲大蝦

Families and Friends, hope you had a wonderful day today, either at work or with kids! I know y'all are busy, but we still have eat. Sometimes eating at home costs the same as eating out, but at least you know what you eating. So eat at home more often! Ok, for today I will show a traditional dish but with a little  twist. It's called Steamed Prawns with Butter-Garlic and Green Bean Noodle(Bean Vermicelli)蒜茸牛油蒸粉絲大蝦. You'll see how easy and simple this dish is.

Alright, let's cook!!!

Ingredients

• 1 lb large white shrimps( cleaned and devined)
• 2 pcs dried bean noodle(soaked)

This dried and fried garlic is super tasty. It pairs great with steamed food because of its contrasting intensity.

I've seen this at local grocery stores as well as the Asian ones.

Seasoning

• 2 tbs unsalted butter(melted)
• 4 clove fresh garlic( minced)
• 1 tbs fried garlic
• 1 green onion (chopped)
• 1-2 slice tomato(diced)
• 1 ts salt
• 1/2 ts sugar
• 1 ts sesame oil
• 2 ts cooking wine
• 1/2 ts chicken bouillon

Save some of the green part of the scallions and the tomatoes for a garnish at the end.

Mix in all the seasonings into the melted butter. This will be for seasoning the raw shrimp.

How to melt the butter? Place the butter in a bowl and put it the microwave for about 25 seconds. Now you have some nice melted butter. Mix the melted butter with all the seasoning, except the diced tomato and half the green onion because we will be using it for a garnish later. Now set it aside.

Soaking the green bean noodle

In large bowl, fill it up with warm water and soak the noodle for about 10 minutes. Then drain it, and finally set it aside.

Soak in WARM water for about ten minutes. The noodles will only be softened and par cooked in this process because we will be steaming later.

I recommend cutting the noodles a little bit shorter before plating. It helps when eating it in a family style setting. Long noodles get hard to share from the same plate (which usually ends up getting cut anyways).

Seasoning the shrimp

In a large bowl, mix up the shrimp with the butter-garlic seasoning we prepared and set it aside. If you do not like to eat shrimp in the shell, feel free to clean and trim the shrimp to your liking BEFORE you season it. I prefer the shell because it has a lot of flavor which brings a good seafood flavor to the entire dish.

Shelled for more flavor OR deshelled for preference and convenience. It's up to you how you want to do it. I know some kids don't like their shrimp shelled....

Distribute the seasoning as evenly as you can.

On a large plate, place the soaked noodle in the middle of the plate and top it nicely with the seasoned shrimp. Set it aside

With the noodles acting as a nest, place the shrimp in an even layered pattern as shown here. It will let the shrimp cook evenly. That is the biggest purpose of this step (besides it looking pretty fancy lol).

Once your water is hot and boiling, place the cover and let it steam for about 5 minutes or until the shrimp is done to your liking.

Now, bring 1/4 pan or steamer of water to boiling, (we don't need too much water, bcz the shrimp only needs to steam in very short time) place the shrimp into the pan/steamer and let steam for  5 minutes the most.  Take out the shrimp carefully and garnish with diced tomato and green onion! That's it, Steamed Prawns with Butter-Garlic and Green Bean Noodle 蒜茸牛油蒸粉絲大蝦! Enjoy
It!!

Carefully remove the hot plate from the steam pan and place it aside to rest for just a moment.

Final garnish and you're done! This dish will have very delightful shrimp flavors that have steamed onto the noodles and throughout the dish. Mmmmm like a Chinese Shrimp Scampi! lol

Coming next!!
Beef Shank in Hot Oil
紅油牛腱

Psalm 37:4
"Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart."

詩篇37:4
"你要以耶和華為樂， 他就把你心裡所求的賜給你."

Fish Fillets in Black Bean Sauce 豉汁魚片

Families and Friends, it's time again! So today I will show you how to make a classic dish, Fish Fillets in Black Bean Sauce. It's very simple and delicious. This dish will use some of the left over vegetable from the previous dish Singapore Mei Fun.

Ok let's cook some fish!!

Ingredients

• 1 lbs fish fillet(any fish fillet) (cut up an inch length)
• 1/4 red and bell pepper(cut up square pcs)
• 1/4 yellow onion (cut up square pcs)optional
• 2 slice ginger(strips/minced)
• 2 clove garlic(minced)
• 1 green onion(diced)
• 1 tbs preserved black bean(washed and drained)

Cut fish into smaller sizes. Anywhere from 1.5 inches to 2 inches.

Similarly, you want the cut the bell peppers around the same size as well.

Chinese dried black beans have a lot of very strong flavors. I soak mine in water to mild down the saltiness a bit. Then I drain them.

Fish Coating

• 1/2 cup cornstarch
• 1 egg
• 1/2 ts salt
• 1 ts sesame oil
• 1 tbs vegetable oil

In a big bowl, crack in one egg with the cut up fish fillet, cornstarch, salt, and sesame oil. Mix it evenly till the cornstarch becomes thick enough to give the fish a nice coating(if it's too thick, add little water if needed). Finally, add a tbs of oil and mix it up. Set this aside for now.

Add in all the ingredients and mix it up very thoroughly until it creates the batter. Once it looks like this, you are ready to go with the frying.

The Sauce/seasoning

• 1 tbs mushroom dark soy sauce
• 1 tbs oyster sauce
• 1/4 tbs chicken boulion
• 1/4 tbs sugar
• 1/2 tbs sesame oil
• 1 tbs cooking wine
• 1 cup water/chicken stock
• 1/2 tbs cornstarch( in a small bowl mix 2 tbs water for later use)

In a bowl mix up all the seasoning( except the cornstarch) and set it aside. The cornstarch mixture we will use at the end to thicken the sauce as we cook it.

Cornstarch at the end to thicken the sauce.

**This sauce is also good for Braised Ribs, Spicy Wings,Beef with Bitter Melon, Beef Chow Fun with Gravy, Shredded Pork with Green Bean or Spicy Beef Honeycomb etc...

Frying the Fish

Since we only fry a lb of fish fillet, so we don't need a big pan or pot. So a medium/small pan should be good! Heat it up in high heat with half oil. Wait till the oil is hot enough before frying.  To check if it's ready, just throw a small pc of your fish (or the batter itself) into the oil. If it floats up right away and it's golden brown, that means the oil is ready. After you fry the first few pcs fillet, just wait for the oil to heat up again before frying the next set because the temperature would have dropped significantly. Place all the cooked fillet on a plate with a pc paper towel.

You want it to be this 'busy' when it fries. If it is anything less, the fish will just soak up the oil and get greasy instead of crispy.

Fish doesn't take but a few minutes to cook because it's very thin. You also have to remember that we will be adding this back into the saute pan when we cook the dish all together.

Golden is the color you are looking for here. If all the pieces are cut to the same size, they should all be cooked enough.

If you like your fish extra crispy, REFRY the fish you just fried once more to get an extra crisp on the outside.  Set it aside.

Tossing the Fish Fillet..

Heat up a pan/wok in high heat with 2 tbs vegetable oil, threw in the black bean, garlic, ginger, green onion, yellow onion( optional) red and bell pepper. Stir it for few second, add the sauce. Let it cook for a minute then add in the cornstarch/water mixture a little at a time. Be cautious with it because you don't want the sauce to get too thick.  Sometimes the sauce thickens more from the batter on the fish.

Bring out the aromatics of the garlic, ginger, black beans, and scallions.

Stir fry the bell peppers until they develop a slight blister on the outside.

Add your sauce to the pan. Then stir in slowly the cornstarch. Once the sauce looks thick enough, add in your fried fish fillets.

 Now throw it the fish fillet, and toss it till the sauce cover all the fillets. Once it's fully incorporated, you're done! That's it, a classic fish fillet in black bean sauce 豉汁魚片! Enjoy it!!

This dish doesn't need a lot of sauce because of the saltiness from the black beans and the seasoning we created in the the batter mix for frying the fish. 

You will have this beautiful shiny coating of sauce that is just enough to glaze your mouth with every bite.

Coming up next!
Steamed Prawns with Butter-Garlic and Green Bean Noodle(Bean Vermicelli)
蒜茸牛油蒸粉絲大蝦

2 Corinthians 5:17
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."

哥林多後書 5：17

"如果有人在基督裡，他就是新造的人，舊事已經過去，你看，都變成新的了！"