Hi everyone, welcome to this episode of Amanda Tastes. Today we are going to make a must-have in your fridge, which is also great on steam rice and noodles. That is ba bao beef sauce.
I name the sauce ba bao because it contains 8 ingredients(ba bao means 8 treasures in Chinese ), Sichuan preserved pickle, raw blanched peanuts, spiced dry tofu, wood ear mushrooms, chanterelle, small shrimps, shiitake mushrooms, and beef mince.
It is totally fine if you want to use pork or half pork and half beef.
The ingredients for the sauce, from top to bottom, left to right, are: fermented bean paste, rock sugar, star anise, tsaoko cardamom, bay leaves, shaoxing wine, chili pepper flakes, sesame oil, light soy sauce, minced garlic,narrated ginger, dark soy sauce, and black pepper.
We also need 200ml vegetable oil.
This is not as much as you think. Because there are so many ingredients in the ba bao sauce, and it's very time consuming, so I prefer to make several servings at a time.
Prepare your ingredients.
First, we soak shiitake mushrooms, wood ear mush rooms and chanterelle in lukewarm water after rinsing.
For peanuts, I already soaked and kept them in cold water yesterday. They need to stay in the fridge over night.
So now we finish soaking the dry foods.
I am using chanterelle here because I happen to have some on hand. You can use any other dry mushrooms if you like, or you can just use shiitake mushrooms only for this recipe.
If your soaking water is clear and clean, you can sift it and set aside to use later.
Remove the stems of shiitake mushrooms.
Trim thin slices.
Then dice them.
For chanterelle, just use your hands.
Tear them into slices first, then dice into small pieces.
Cut spiced dry tofu horizontally , then slice and dice them into small pieces.
Same goes for the Sichuan preserved pickles.
And wood ear mushrooms as well.
Now we are done preparing for the ingredients. Here are spiced dry tofu, shiitake mushrooms, chanterelle, peanuts, wood ear mushrooms and Sichuan preserved pickles.
Let's heat the pan.
Pour in oil a little more than the amount for stir-fry. This is an extra amount of oil needed for this recipe besides the 200ml vegetable oil as we mentioned before.
Turn the heat on medium. Add in beef mince before your pan gets hot. We need to break up the beef mince. If your pan is too hot, the beef will firm up immediately in it.
Use your spatula to break them up into very small pieces, do not let them stick together.
You will see juices coming out of the beef, be patient and keep cooking until the juices are all gone.
Pour in shaoxing wine.
Keep cooking until beef are slightly brown.
Add in half a cup of water, and gently scrape off those beef stick at the bottom of your pan.
Turn off the heat and set them aside.
Heat up another stew pot on medium, and pour in 200ml vegetable oil.
Add in the spices, star anise, tsaoko cardamom and bay leaves.
Heat them for a few seconds until you see small bubbles rising next to the spices, then add in shiitake mushrooms and chanterelle.
And small shrimps.
And fermented bean paste. Saute the spices in hot oil thoroughly, and keep them on medium heat. Wait for 3 to 5 minutes until done.
Add in Sichuan preserved pickles.
Spiced dry tofu.
And wood ear mushrooms.
Stir until fragrant.
Then add in chili flakes.
Keep cooking for another 3 to 5 minutes. Please be patient, do not turn up the heat and overcook these spices, but make sure they are fully cooked.
Add in beef until you can smell the spices.
Then peanuts, and the soaking water for dry foods. Stir thoroughly.
Add in some water if needed. Make sure the ingredients are just covered by the sauce.
Cover with lid. Turn the heat on high to boil.
Add in the condiments.
Light soy sauce, black pepper, oyster sauce, rock sugar and dark soy sauce after boiling.
Mix well. I prefer a lighter flavor from those spices, so I will get star anise, bay leaves and tsaoko cardamom out at this point.
Cover with lid, and turn the heat on low to cook for an hour. After an hour, leave the lid on until the sauce is completely cool.
If you don't have enough time, you can now transfer the pot into the fridge, and heat them again the next day.
After the sauce has been cooled down, get it back on the stove and cook until boil. Then turn the heat on low to cook for another hour. Cooling down and heating up helps the sauce to absorb all the ingredients in the pot, and it helps to balance the flavor.
Stir in sesame oil after the braise.
Stir and combine thoroughly, and turn off the heat.
You can have a try before serving. Since we have added in so many spices and condiments, so we don't quite need any more salt. You can adjust based on your personal preference.
It looks like this when it's done. You can serve it in many ways. This alone can be a dish, but you can also serve with steam rice and noodles, or do fried rice or stir fry using the sauce.
I personally enjoy having noodles topped with my beef sauce. Place the noodles in a plate. Please refer to the last episode about making handmade Udon noodles.
Add the beef sauce. on top.
Sprinkle some cilantro or chives, and mix well before you eat.
It is pretty time consuming to make such a beef sauce, so I would like to make a lot at a time, and then divide them into small portions and store in the freezer. Next time I want to have some beef sauce, I will take one portion out and heat it up, it tastes much like this one that I just made.
It is also convenient to have some beef sauce ready on hand. When you do not have the mood for cooking, just grab one portion and you will make yourself a beef noodle in just a minute.
I hope you enjoy this tasty, and convenient must-have ba bao beef sauce.
Please follow me on weibo and wechat. Below is my personal website, you will find many other recipes down there.
Last, thanks for watching.