Tender beef simmered gently in a clear, savoury broth. Simple and hearty, and easy to scale up for meal prep. Add Daikon radish to make it a complete meal.

Time: 5/5
Several hours of passive time, especially if you have a vacuum pot.

Effort: 4/5
The pre-blanching and rinsing is a bit of a hassle, but you end up with a lot of good food.

Soup for the Soul

Cantonese cuisine is proof that comfort food doesn’t have to be rich or greasy. A silky soft savoury egg custard is as comforting as anything can, yet it is light and refreshing. Nor does it have to be complicated or hard to make. 5 ingredients is all you need to make a Napa Cabbage Soup, or a Bok Choy Soup – and I’m counting water and salt! 

The common theme here is that these are all dishes that retain heat well. That temperature is key to the hug-in-a-bowl sort of feeling that you want to pick yourself up at the end of a long day.

The recipe I want to share with you all this week is Cantonese beef brisket in clear broth (清湯腩 ; ching tong laam, or literally clear-broth-brisket). It’s exactly what it says on the tin: Beef simmered low and slow in a conservatively seasoned broth that doesn’t stand in the way and lets the meat take center stage. Although brisket is not the only cut of meat that works well here – I took the liberty of substituting it with some budget-friendly boneless beef rib fingers instead, which incidentally also makes an excellent Japanese curry.

Some recipes also include Daikon radish, which I wholeheartedly agree with. Daikon radishes add fiber and volume to the meal, as well as a nice subtle sweetness to round out the meaty savoury flavour. Incidentally, Daikon radish is also excellent when simmered in a Dashi-based broth.

Cantonese beef brisket in clear broth is kind of like Singaporean-style Bak Kut Teh, but that recipe uses pork ribs instead of beef brisket, and the broth is more aggressively seasoned. Come to think of it, with so much movement of people and ideas between Singapore and Southern China, I won’t be surprised if the two recipes share some sort of connection.

This sort of recipe is perfect for my vacuum cooker. It’s basically a huge thermos flask that uses the power of physics to keep its contents hot for a long time without needing additional energy. I can bring the pot to a boil once, put it inside the cooker, and let it coast while I run errands or do chores without any need for oversight.

It’s one of my favourite ways to meal prep all sorts of things from “Swiss” Chicken Wings, to Filipino Pork Adobo, to Lamb Shank Stew. In fact, I keep a whole list of recipes that make use of this wonderful piece of equipment. I’d put it fourth on my list of kitchen essentials, after a rice cooker, a big skillet, and an oven.

And because it takes the same amount of time and effort, I am going to make as much brisket as my pot will fit. I only served about a quarter of the 3lbs, because I have wonderful things planned for the remainder – a Hong Kong style coconut curry, and a brisket and bean curd stew. Some folks call it ingredient prep, but I just call it thinking ahead.

It’s all the more reason to make a huge batch of this Cantonese beef brisket in clear broth. Check it out!

Posts since the last recipe that was actually served with rice: 0

Dramatis Personae

Served 8, or 2 with leftovers for plenty of other recipes.

• 3lb beef rib fingers
• Several pieces of ginger
• 1 cup chicken broth, plus enough water to cover
• Several cloves of garlic
• 2 star anise pods
• 4 bay leaves
• 1 tsp white peppercorns
• 1 fingernail-sized piece of rock sugar, or about 1 tsp
• Salt, to taste
• 600g Daikon radish, peeled and cut into 2 inch chunks

Executive summary

1. Pre-blanche the beef by putting it in cold water with the ginger. Slowly bring to a boil, strain it, and rinse with running water.
2. Return rinsed beef to a cleaned pot. Add all the other ingredients except the Daikon radish. 
3. Simmer on low heat for 2 hours, or until the beef is tender.
4. Add the Daikon radish, and simmer for another 1 hour.
5. Serve hot.

Play by Play

The pre-blanche makes sure the broth stays nice and clear. Bring the beef and water from room temperature to a simmer, then wash off all the gunk.

Now, the proper simmer. Everything goes in except the daikon, then into the vacuum cooker for a long warm nap.

I’m reserving all the beef before refrigerating the broth overnight, which will solidify all the rendered beef fat. That makes the broth even more clean-tasting, plus I get tallow to stir fry my vegetables in.

Here I am the next day. I’m saving most of the beef for the upcoming bean curd and beef stir fry, and the beef brisket curry.

The daikon can now go into the broth, until it’s tender. The texture can suffer if you simmer it too long, which is why I saved it for the last step. The beef is already fully tender, so it can go in at the last minute to be warmed back up.

Meanwhile, that tallow is being put to good use to stir fry some sugar snap peas…

Which turned out beautiful.

The beef was beautiful too. Melt in your mouth tender meat, and the broth has been infused with a savoury, yet clean and delicate taste.

Enjoy!

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