Recipes, Beef Recipes

Chinese crispy chilli beef recipe

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My Chinese crispy chilli beef recipe is cheap to make and devastatingly delicious! This dish is perfect for a midweek treat or as part of a larger meal. The origin of the dish is not known, but it is likely a European adaptation of a Sichuan recipe. Best served with rice and a very cold beer.

Serves 2-4

Ingredients

Chilli sauce

Method

First prepare the beef

  1. Sliver the beef into 5-cm long strands, at about ½ cm wide.
  2. Put the beef in a bowl with the marinade mix and leave for 2-4 hours in the fridge, covered.

Now for the chilli sauce

  1. Dry fry the crushed black pepper in a pan and over a medium heat until it begins to smoke. Continue to cook for 30-seconds more while swirling it continuously.
  2. Add the oil into the pan and bring it up to heat before adding the chilli, garlic, ginger and star anise. The oil should be hot enough that the sizzling starts immediately.
  3. Cook until the garlic only just begins to change colour to ivory.
  4. Add in the ketchup, wine, soya sauce, vinegar, honey, orange juice, and its zest to the chilli sauce.
  5. Simmer until syrupy and put to one side.

Cook the steak and serve

  1. On a plate tip 100g corn flour, dredge the wet pieces of beef until well coated and lay on a plate. Use a little extra flour if needed.
  2. In a wok, heat a good amount of oil so that the beef can deep fry in batches.
  3. Have a large mixing bowl waiting with paper to drain the beef.
  4. Fry the beef in small batches, probably 3 strips, until crisp – the object is not to overly cook the beef but to fry the flour to crisp. Note that corn flour will remain pale even when crisp so do not try to achieve a dark colour.
  5. Fry the beef and drop each batch in the bowl.
  6. When all is fried, remove the paper from the bowl leaving just the beef in the bottom and toss the wild garlic into the hot beef where it will wilt. Follow with the sticky sauce turning until it’s well coated.
  7. Eat with rice alongside a cold beer.

Shop the ingredients

Valentine Warner is a chef, food writer, business owner and broadcaster, with a deep interest in nature, travel and provincial food. He describes his cooking style as ‘International Grandmother’ and combines his strong sense of storytelling with his infectious love of cookery. Val has a deep respect and understanding of ingredients, both wild and cultivated, and has the instinctive ability to rustle up hearty and wholesome meals from whatever’s available. Val is an avid proponent of native food sources, and finds common ground with Swaledale in their work to deliver top-notch meat, within a truthful, ethical and high welfare framework. Originally a trained portrait painter, Val has also authored 5 cookbooks, managed his own catering company and is a co-owner of Taqueria, a West London Mexican cafe. Val is also a partner in the Hepple Distillery in Northumberland and Holmen Lofoten hotel on arctic Norway’s Lofoten island.