Today we will be cooking healthy with healthy ingredients. If you like beef, you can try cooking this dish with me. This recipe uses a technique called slippery-coating, similar to the Green Pepper Beef Tenderloin. The beef is marinated with thick starch, then dry-blanched in warm oil (at the temperature of boiling water), not hot oil like a deep-fry. This gives the beef a tender, velvet texture.
Slice the ginger and garlic, and dice the chili peppers.
Dice the beef.
Mix 20 ml of cornstarch with 20 ml water and stir well.
20 ml thick starch water
Rinse the beef, drain the water, add 3ml of salt, 4ml of dark soy sauce, stir until it feels sticky, then add 20ml of thick starch water. Stir well and set aside.
400 g lean beef, 3 ml salt, 4 ml dark soy sauce, 20 ml thick starch water
Dry-blanch the beef: Fill the pan about ⅓ full with cooking oil and heat to 100° C (212° F), then reduce the heat to medium and add the beef.
400 g lean beef
After the beef changes color, add green and red peppers. Stir to keep the beef from sticking together. Remove the beef and peppers after 4 seconds and set aside, then drain the oil into a heat-proof container.
1 green chili, 1 red pepper
Heat the wok and add 15ml of oil to the pot, add ginger and garlic, stir-fry for a few seconds until fragrant. Then, add 50ml (1 ¾ ounces) of water and season with 2ml salt, 3ml dark soy sauce, 10ml light soy sauce, and 3ml sugar. Then add the beef and peppers.
3 g ginger, 3 g garlic, 2 ml salt, 3 ml dark soy sauce, 10 ml light soy sauce, 15 ml cooking oil, 3 ml sugar
Stir-fry until the broth is thick, add 3ml oil and stir well. This oil brightens the colors.
3 ml cooking oil to brighten
Plate and serve.
Notes
In step 7, when the beef starts to change color, use a slotted spoon to spread out the beef to avoid sticking together.
We did not use starch water for Daqian, because thick starch water was added to the beef before blanching, so the surface of the beef was covered with a layer of starch. This starch thickens the broth as the beef as the liquid is heated and the beef is stirred in the broth. So, to finish, we just need to add oil to the broth to make it brighter.