A quick weeknight beef bowl with a rich, sticky, sweet-and-savoury sauce, inspired by Taiwanese Lu Rou Fan

Time: 2/5
Essentially steak with a pan sauce

Effort: 3/5
Things happen fast, gotta stay quick on your feet

Flavour remixed

Lu Rou Fan (滷肉飯, braise-meat-rice) is a popular Taiwanese dish where cuts of pork, usually skin-on belly, are cut into small pieces and stewed in a sweet, soy sauce based liquid for hours until the meat becomes fall-apart tender and the sauce is rich and savoury. The whole affair is then ladled over rice and enjoyed as a comforting, home-style meal. Read about my attempt to make a more macro-friendly, meal prep verison of lu rou fan.

I have fond memories of having Lu Rou Fan for breakfast in a wet market in Taichung, a busy place where the locals buy their groceries. As we were waiting, a middle aged man drove a moped off the road and down the aisle of the market, between the stalls, and came to a stop outside the little diner we were in. He called out his takeaway order and nonchalantly sat astride his rumbling steed, while the morning shoppers walked around him without so much as a glance in his direction. Our order arrived about the same time as his – turned out we ordered the same thing.

Several years later, I tried a different take on Lu Rou Fan from a new Taiwanese place that a colleague recommended. They used chunks of beef short rib instead of pork, and I was won over by the rich beefy flavour! That inspired me to try making a Lu Rou Fan inspired weeknight dinner, using the same sauce but with steak bites instead (the same ones as my Teriyaki Beef Bowl recipe).

I envisage it as a much more simple affair where I sear the beef, and create a flavourful pan sauce to coat everything with. You know, a sort of weeknight approximation that isn’t the real deal but scratches the same itch when you don’t have 2 hours to stand over a pot.

For something that took less than an hour to throw together, I was pretty happy with the result – especially when considering that at the same time I got several extra portions out of it.

Dramatis Personae

Meat – I cooked 1kg of beef for 5 meals

I’m not sure what cut of meat my steak bites were. My best guess would be ribeye. I treat this recipe as basically steak with a Lu Rou Fan inspired pan sauce. This was partly due to my desire for convenience and speed, but also because it’s what works best for the ingredients I have on hand.

If you want to go the more traditional route, pick a good braising cut like pork belly or shoulder (or if using beef, short ribs or chuck). You don’t need to sear the meat, but rather you simmer it low and slow for one or two hours until the meat becomes fall-apart tender.

Aromatics

Fried shallots are a big part of the flavour in the Lu Rou Fan sauce, so don’t be afraid to be very generous with the shallots. Garlic is also very nice. I would also classify sugar as an aromatic here due to the time when it’s added, and the fact that I’ll be cooking it into a caramel like in the Three Cup Chicken recipe.

Five spice powder is also key to the Lu Rou Fan flavour profile. A bay leaf and some white pepper does subtle things in the background to rounds things out.

Sauce

Soy sauce is the base flavour, but it’s too strong on its own. Some Chinese rice wine gives the sauce some extra volume while adding a sweetness and aroma of its own. Of course, you are at liberty to add as little or as much water as you desire.

Vegetables – about 3lbs

Always eat your veggies! My SO’s father gave us some choy sum (菜心; sometimes spelled choi sum and also known as Cai Xin. Literally, vegetable-heart) so that’s what I’ll be using. It’s a brassica like bok choi, and it’s prized for its sweet and tender stem. They’re especially good if harvested during cold weather, when they are less stringy. They’re also better when they’re harvested young, which you can tell by a smaller size with shorter and thinner stems, and less flowers.

Executive summary

1. Get rice cooking in the rice cooker
2. Wash and drain vegetables. Stir fry with a bit of garlic and season to taste. Set aside.
3. Turn heat to high and let the pan preheat. Sear the meat until browned and reserve.
4. Turn heat down to low. Gently fry shallots on until golden.
5. Add garlic, bay leaf and five spice powder in one side of the pan and stir fry until fragrant, while cooking down sugar on the other side of the pan until bubbly.
6. Add soy sauce and Chinese rice wine (be aware of splatter). Stir to combine and reduce the sauce to your liking.
7. Return meat to the pan, tossing to combine. Assemble your meal and serve.

Play by Play

Aromatics prepped and ready to go.The amount of shallots you see here should arguably be quadrupled.

It may look like there’s too much choy sum, but have faith, persevere, and you shall be rewarded. There’s about a tablespoon of minced garlic hiding in the mass of vegetables.

Giving the beef a quick sear on high heat. They’ll do some more cooking in the sauce later, so don’t worry if they’re still a bit rare. I’m just looking for some nice browning.

Once the beef is done, give the shallots a head start in the rendered beef tallow. Do this on lower heat, as the pieces of shallot are small and we don’t want them to burn and develop acrid flavours. Once the shallots are caramelised, add the garlic and sizzle until you can smell them.

Push the aromatics to the side and continue to stir them every once in a while. On the other side of the pan, add the sugar and cook it down into a caramel sauce.

Add the soy sauce and rice wine, and stir stir stir! Sorry about the fog – things were getting steamy, and I couldn’t get my camera to focus.

Return the beef, along with any and all accumulated juices, into the pan and stir to combine. At this stage you can simmer for as long as you want, adding water as desired to adjust the consistency of the sauce to your liking. If making a traditional Lu Rou Fan with pork belly, this is where you put a lid on the wok and start braising. It’s also common to add peeled hard-boiled eggs at this stage, to let them absorb the wonderful flavours of the sauce.

Dinner is served!

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