This dish takes about an hour to make and it is pretty easy to make, it is super delicious with white rice. To start you need beef then cut the beef to an inch and a half-inch size work through the beef and give it a blanch. To blanch toss the beef into some cool water together with some ginger, this is about 2 inches of ginger sliced in half and gently smashed. Put the heat in high cover and bring it up to a boil.

The purpose of the blanch is to remove the impurities and a little bit of grease and once it is at a rapid boil skim out all the gunk and transfer the beef and ginger onto a bowl. To cook this in aromatics and spices you will need a leek cut into sections, ginger roughly minced, and garlic also minced. The spices are cinnamon sticks, anise, chillies, herbals, dried bay leaves, and coriander seeds.

Next, toss in the dried beef and ginger into a pan heating over medium-high heat and toast them for about 3 minutes until the surface is dry and a bit brown. Scotch the beef to the side and add in a tablespoon of oil minced garlic and ginger. Fry for about 10 seconds in the oil then fry all of them together for another minute then transfer them to either a clay pot or cast-iron Dutch oven.

Add in hot boiled water, leek, the spice plate, soy sauce, dark soy sauce, and sugar and then cover it and let it stew for one hour at the lowest speed. Peel the potatoes cut them into 1-inch chunks, and toss them in a bowl of water for oxidation and removal of excess starch. Once half an hour as passed check the water level and add the hot boiled water if necessary.

After another hour, the beef should be done. It should be tender enough to easily poke through with the chopstick. At this point add the potatoes, remove the leek and cover and cook for 15 minutes over a medium-high flame. After the 15 minutes uncover and jostle everything around a bit. The liquid will be a bit thicker.

Let it cook uncovered at medium heat and stir it occasionally to reduce the liquid. After the reduction, season with salt give it a mix and let it cook for about another minute, and out braised beef with potatoes is done. Serve to the plate and enjoy it.

Ingredients;

  • 750 grams of beef  brisket
  • 300 grams of potato
  • 2 Ginger, smashed.
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced; ½ leek, cut into a few sections.
  • Water, 1 litre.
  • Light Soy Sauce 3 tbsp
  • Dark Soy Sauce, 1 tbsp. For color use ¼ cup of light soy sauce.
  • Sugar, 1 tbsp.
  • Spices: 1 cinnamon stick, 2-star anise, 4 dried chilis, 2 dried bay leaves, ½ tsp coriander seeds.
  • Salt, ¼ tsp. For the final seasoning.

Instructions;

  1. Cut the beef into 1×1.5 inch chunks, smash the ginger, cut the leek, and mince the garlic and ginger. For the beef, try to keep the pieces as long as you can. Too small and it’ll shrink too much, too large and it’ll take longer to get as tender as you want it.
  2. Place the beef pieces and smashed ginger slices into a pot of cool water, set the heat to high and bring up to a boil. Cover to let that come up a bit faster.
  3. Once at a rapid boil, skim the gunk off the top, and transfer out the beef, and the ginger. So the purpose of this blanch is two-fold: first, it’ll remove some of the impurities from the beef; second, it’ll get out a bit of the grease.
  4. In a dry wok over medium-high heat, toast the beef and the ginger for ~3 minutes. Obviously, make sure you pre-heat the wok for a couple of minutes first.
  5. What you’re looking for here is for the surface of the beef to dry out and begin browning.
  6. Scooch the beef to the side of the wok, add in ~1 tbsp of oil, fry the minced garlic and ginger in it for ~10 seconds, then combine and fry it all together for about another minute.
  7. Transfer everything to a clay pot or a cast iron dutch oven. So you can continue stewing in the wok if you absolutely need to, but they’re not really the ideal vessel to do it in.
  8. Add in the water, leek, light and dark soy sauce, sugar, and your spice plate. Cover, and stew for one hour over low heat.
  9. Be sure to check on the water level at the 30-minute mark.
  10. Cut the potato into one-inch chunks, then place in a bowl of cool water to soak. Make sure the potato chunks are soaking for at least a half-hour.
  11. After an hour, the beef should be tender enough to poke through with a fork. At this point, add in the soaked potatoes, cover, and cook for 15 minutes over medium-high heat.
  12. After 15 minutes, uncover and reduce the heat while stirring periodically.
  13. You want to cook the stew for ten minutes for it to be thick enough.
  14. Season with the ¼ tsp salt, mix it in and cook for another minute.