Tips

Do not be foolish to add these 2 spices to stir-fried beef: It is not only greasy but also lacking nutrients.

Everyone can stir-fry beef, but it's challenging to make the dish tender and juicy. When stir-frying beef, housewives also need to know some tips to prevent the beef from being tough, dry, and losing its nutrients.

Administrator

6 January, 2024

Two spices to avoid when cooking beef

During the stewing or braising process of beef, there are two types of spices that many people use for cooking, which are onions and pepper. These are two very fragrant spices that many people think can get rid of the smell of beef, but actually have the opposite effect, causing the beef to lose its own flavor.

Onions and pepper have distinct flavors that overshadow the basic taste of beef, making the dish less delicious, and even creating a dry feeling when eating beef.

When stewing or braising beef, all you need to prepare are simple ingredients such as beef, white radish or pickles… Cut the beef into bite-sized pieces and put them in a pot. Add enough water along with sliced white radish, a little ginger, Chinese chives, dried orange peel, and dried chili (if desired), turn on the stove and boil the beef on high heat until it boils.

Then, reduce the heat to medium, stew or braise for 30 minutes and season with salt to taste. You can add a little soy sauce to enhance the flavor of the braised beef, simmer for a while for the beef to absorb the salt and soy sauce. In this way, these spices when added to the beef will not be too strong, they will create a gentle aroma for the beef, making it more delicious and appealing.

To have a tender and flavorful stir-fried beef dish, follow the steps below.

Choose good beef

To prevent the stir-fried beef from becoming tough, first of all, you need to choose good beef. For stir-fried dishes, choose beef tenderloin as it will be sweet and tender, not tough, and has a good color. It is best to buy tenderloin. The meat must be fresh, avoid pieces with dark red color. If choosing a fatty type, prioritize pieces of beef fat that are yellow and firm, do not choose soft fat as it will be very tough.

For more caution, check if the meat is still fresh by lightly pressing it with your finger, if it doesn’t stick and does not have any unusual smell, it means the meat is still fresh.

Thinly slice the beef

To eliminate the odor of the meat, after buying it, you should wash it thoroughly with salted water and ginger, then use a paper towel to dry it before slicing. You need to slice the beef thinly, the thicker you slice, the tougher it will become.

After slicing, you can use a meat tenderizer to enhance its tenderness. For pieces of beef that are already tender, you can skip this step.

Marinate with cooking oil

With fresh beef, you only need to marinate it with a little seasoning powder, soy sauce, and a few crushed garlic cloves, ground black pepper. Add a tablespoon of cooking oil, mix well and let it marinate for about 30 minutes, the meat will become tender and delicious. Do not add too much fish sauce or salt when marinating, as it will make the meat watery, dry, and tough when stir-fried.

Hot pan, quick stir-fry

Remember that for stir-fried beef, do not add oil to the pan and do not add the meat until the pan is hot; it means you will not stir-fry the beef with hot oil as usual but use the oil that has been marinated in the meat before.

Professional chefs explain that if you pour raw beef into hot oil, this contact will create a rapid temperature change, causing the beef to contract. This is the reason why stir-fried beef becomes tough and sticks to the pan.

When stir-frying, turn on high heat but do not let the pan get too hot or else the beef will overcook and no longer be tender. Stir quickly, when the meat is cooked, turn off the stove, because if you stir-fry it for too long, the meat will become tougher. If stir-frying with vegetables, stir-fry the beef separately, only add the beef after the vegetables are cooked, stir well, then turn off the heat.

Tips for quickly softening beef with a regular pot

Without a pressure cooker, you can still quickly soften beef if you apply the following tips.

After buying the beef, you need to wash it clean, slice it into slightly larger pieces to suit the stew. Boil the appropriate amount of water, add the beef and boil for about 3 minutes to remove any impurities, then remove the beef.

Note: When stewing beef, never use cold water. If you want to add more water, you must use boiling water, because cold water will make the meat tough, dry, and difficult to eat. Therefore, the steps are to parboil the meat to remove impurities, then boil another pot of boiling water and add the beef along with other spices to stew.

The next step is the most important, the secret to making soft, quick and not tough stir-fried beef is to add a teaspoon of white sugar and simmer. Adding sugar to the pot of stewed beef can make the water penetrate into the meat faster, making the beef tender faster.

After simmering on low heat for about 15-20 minutes, the beef is almost cooked, at this point, add a little salt to taste and simmer for another 5 minutes for the salt to absorb, then you can turn off the heat.

Source: Giaitri.thoibaovhnt