Stewed Brisket of Beef with Carrots (Chook Toong Siong Mei Ngau Lam)

Ingredients

800g brisket of beef (ngau lam)
500g tomato sauce
200g carrots
200g radish
50g rock sugar (ping tong)
30g white vinegar
20g cornflour
2 fresh red chillies (whole)
30g oyster sauce
a pinch of monosodium glutamate

Method

Cut brisket of beef and carrots into cubes. Add sugar, monosodium glutamate, white vinegar, oyster sauce, tomato sauce, cornflour and red chillies. Add water till it covers the beef slightly. Simmer the meat for 45 minutes until tender. Serve in a bamboo trunk.

Origin: A Hunanese dish named after Siong Mei, a village in Hunan, China.

Cooking tip: It is best to cook this dish and keep it overnight. Reheat the next day before serving. This way, the dish will be more tasty as the flavours "mature".

Taste and tell: The restaurant serves this dish with tomato sauce-based gravy but the chunky beef were tender and most palatable. Rock sugar gives it a natural sweetish taste. The carrot-and-radish combination helps to enhance this stew-like dish. A must try recipe!

From Kuali.com