Okay, this one was a most pleasant surprise. We took a trip to Chaoshan 潮汕 and were treated to the local food star the Chaoshan beef hotpot 潮汕牛肉火鍋. When I first heard about this I have to admit that I rolled my eyes a bit. Whatever. I’ve had plenty of beef in hotpots before. Delicious but how ‘special’ could a beef hot pot be?
Well, I was totally sucker punched in this one. We sat down to a Chaoshan style all beef hotpot and it was the most delicious beef hotpot we’ve ever had!!! I had never even dreamed that beef could be so interestingly yummilicious, each beef cut brimming with flavor and its own unique texture. It was a powerful food experience, one that I’ll never forget and am already longing to taste again.
Note that while I was stuffing my face I forgot to note some of the finer points of this wonderful food experience. But I’ve done some research after the fact and better understand it now. But while we were eating, oh, but all I could think was more, more, more!
I did manage to remember to ask our kind hosts why the beef was so darn delectable. It turns out that absolute freshness of the beef was the secret. From butcher to table in the same day, the meat is so fresh that it is never refrigerated, it's that freaking fresh! And that's why the meat was so delicious.
Just look at our table, completely packed with plate after plate of freshly sliced beef, each plate featuring a different cut of beef. In the middle a pot of bubbling beef bone stock. Two ladles provided, one normal one for scooping soup, the other a net ladle. Grab some beef of your choice with your chopsticks and lower into the hotpot soup inside the net ladle. Use chopsticks to stir the beef for the appropriate amount of seconds. Lift up when done and allow diners to grab some cooked beef from the ladle. Nom, nom, nom!!
After stuffing myself to the hilt I managed to recover myself enough to do some research on this amazing hotpot experience. The Chaoshan beef cuts used for the beef hotpot are shown in my little drawing above. There are so many different cuts! Each of these cuts are presented as a menu option in Chaoshan beef hotpot restaurants. The cuts are a bit different from western cuts but I've added in the approximate western names on the diagram above.
The Chaoshan folks have certainly elevated the art of the beef to a high level. Each different beef cut is sliced to a specific thinness to bring out the most in the taste and texture of that particular cut. And the diner is also provided with the appropriate amount of seconds to cook the beef to perfection in the hotpot.
Here's some of the more interesting and surprising cuts that we enjoyed that day. The 胸口油, translated as "chest oil", is the white meat at the top left of the poster above. It's cut from the deckle of the brisket and is the cartilage/waxy fat that connects the brisket to the ribcage. It looked strange to us and not too appealing at first. But after trying it we discovered a slightly crunchy, tasty delicacy.
The 吊龍伴, translated as "hanging dragon companion", was the most tender cut. It's a combination cut through the rib/short loin area. OMgosh so good, just melting in the mouth.
The 脖仁, also known as 雪花, is also very good and it has the best name in my opinion. 雪花 translates as 'snowflake'! It is meat from the 'chuck' and is evenly and finely marbled thus gaining the moniker of 'snowflake'.
That's only a few of the 15 different kinds of Chaoshan hotpot beef cuts! Which cut is your favorite?
Another of the specialty must tries of the Chaoshan beef hotpot is the beef ball. The ball is made from the 嫩肉, translated as 'tender meat', and is the rump cut. The beef is hand beaten with metal sticks until a paste is formed. The cooked beef balls we had were bursting with beefy juiciness with the bouncy tender bite that is the mark of a most excellent beef ball.
Each hotpot restaurant will have a sauce station where each diner can go to mix up their own unique sauce. There is soy sauce, ginger, garlic, oil, chili pepper, cilantro, etc. As you can see we went a bit crazy here and tried a little bit of everything.
Our host then pointed out that the most popular and traditional sauce for the beef hotpot is the sacha sauce, 沙茶醬, which is the golden brown sauce in the upper left of our photo. This thick addictive golden sauce is made from deep fried peanuts, garlic, dried flat fish, dried shrimp and sesame sauce, then seasoned with five spice, tumeric, sugar and chen pi, all of which is then stirred in oil over a low heat until the thick gorgeously flavored sauce is done. We came home with a big ol bottle of sacha sauce which we're going to bust out for our winter hotpots at home! Looking forward, nom, nom!
The last part of the hotpot meal was to add noodles to the stock, now enriched with all the beef cooked in it. The cooked noodles and soup are then scooped into bowls to be eaten to fill the last corners of your tummy. Oh dear reader, it was so good... If you ever get a chance, you must try the Chaoshan beef hotpot!
Beef-ilicious at The Hon Kong Cookery:
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