Kevin Zhou, the chef from Derby's Cosmo restaurant, offers a quick and easy stir-fry recipe that can be made faster than going to pick up your takeaway and is healthy and tasty:
CHINESE cooking has a very distinct flavour and it is because of these strange and wonderful flavours that there is no comparison to traditional English food.
Meals in black bean sauce are a staple in any good Chinese menu, and a go-to dish for many when visiting a restaurant or ordering a takeaway. But what do you know about the sauce, and indeed the bean itself?
Known as douchi in Chinese, the beans are fermented and salt-preserved soya beans, used frequently in both traditional-style and western-style Chinese cooking.
The sauce, thanks to the black beans, is subtle, and has a deeply savoury taste.
It is not sweet and not spicy like chilli-heavy dishes also found in Chinese cooking.
This dish is found on menus in every Chinese restaurant across the whole country, frequently with beef, chicken and pork – but the taste lends itself to prawns and duck equally.
The sesame oil in the recipe is a must, giving the whole dish the wonderful flavour of Chinese that we have come to recognise.
Like olive oil in Mediterranean cooking, sesame is used liberally in almost all Chinese dishes.
Wondering what to serve this dish with? Noodles work well, but rice is the perfect accompaniment to this meal – boiled, steamed or egg fried.
To cook perfect rice, add twice the amount of boiling water to a pan of rice, and bring back to the boil on a high heat. Once it's bubbling, turn the heat down and put a lid on the pan. Leave for around 20 minutes, without stirring. It's ready once all the water's gone. Leave to stand for a further 10 minutes off the heat.
Fluff up with a fork when ready to serve.
Chinese stir fried beef with peppers in black bean sauce
Ingredients
450g beef – rib eye or sirloin, thinly sliced
1 ½ tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp rice wine (optional)
2 tsp corn flour
2 tbsp peanut oil
1 green pepper, sliced into ½ inch strips
1 red pepper, sliced into ½ inch strips
1 onion, sliced
1 tbsp ginger, crushed
2 cloves garlic
For the sauce:
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp sugar
120ml chicken stock
3 tbsp black bean sauce
1 tbsp corn flour
1 tsp sesame oil
Method
1. In a shallow bowl, coat the beef with soy sauce, rice wine (if using), and corn starch and toss together. Set aside.
2. In a small mixing bowl, mix together all the sauce ingredients.
3. Heat 1 tbsp of oil in a wok or heavy duty skillet over a high heat until smoking. Add the beef and stir-fry quickly – for about 1-2 minutes – until the centre of the beef slices are slightly pink. It will continue to cook once off the heat. Transfer to another plate and set aside.
4. Add the remaining oil to a wok and stir-fry the peppers, onion, and ginger until just tender – around 2-3 minutes.
5. Add the garlic and stir fry.
6. Return the beef to the wok and toss. Pour over the sauce and toss everything together until the sauce thickens. Serve with rice.
For any occasion, stir fried beef in black bean sauce will tick all the boxes. Enjoy eating!
