Recipe help?

[luzula]

So a while ago I ate a really delicious meal at a Chinese stall at a food court. It was those thick Chinese wheat noodles and a stew with beef that had clearly cooked for a long time, some vegetables, and a spicy broth/sauce which I'm pretty sure had Szechuan pepper in it. I would like to try to recreate this, but when I search for "beef szechuan" (with variations) all I get is quick stir-fry recipes with tender meat. What I have in my freezer is not tender meat, but something tougher that needs to cook for hours, and anyway the meal I ate was clearly cooked a long time. Does anyone have any tips for what ought to go in that pot?

Comments

[aurumcalendula]

I'm not sure, but one of these might help?

https://thewoksoflife.com/chow-ho-fun-noodles-saucy-beef/

https://thewoksoflife.com/taiwanese-beef-noodle-soup-instant-pot/

https://thewoksoflife.com/spicy-beef-noodle-soup/

[chestnut_pod]

I second trying out Woks of Life!

[luzula]

Thanks! : ) Yeah, the last of those is something that simmers for a long time...

[vatine]

This might be a decent starting point https://delishably.com/world-cuisine/Sichuan-Spicy-Beef-Stew

The main difference is that I searched for "szechuan beef stew", and I still got a heavy top-load of stir-fry.

[trobadora]

Does this look likely?
https://chinesehealthycooking.com/sichuan-stewed-beef-noodles-%E5%B7%9D%E5%91%B3%E7%BA%A2%E7%83%A7%E7%89%9B%E8%82%89%E9%9D%A2/

(It looks delicious to me, I want to make that now!)

[luzula]

Thanks, I'll check it out! : ) (I am a little video-averse, but I'll try to get past that...)

[trobadora]

Yeah, sorry, I totally feel you on that! I just couldn't find a text version.

[chestnut_pod]

I don't cook with meat, so no specific recommendations, but I do know that Fuchsia Dunlop's book on Szechuan cooking is considered the last English word, and there might be something worth looking at in there.

[luzula]

Thanks! The library does have some of her books.

[whimsyful]

Thirding The Woks of Life!

This sounds like a variant of Red Braised Beef/红烧牛肉 used as a noodle topping. (https://thewoksoflife.com/red-braised-beef/). Closely related noodle soups are Taiwanese beef noodle soup (though that usually doesn't have Sichuan peppercorn), or Sichuanese spicy beef noodle soup? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwEEoQzaIAg

[luzula]

Thanks so much for the links, I'll check them out! : )

[ysilme]

Those links sound cool, I'll check them out myself, too. I also often have beef from the freezer that doesn't fit to the kind of recipes I want to make, namely beef that needs long cooking times. What I have done before is cooking the beef as it needs to, but seasoned/spiced like for an Asian broth - with onion, carrot, spring onion or leeks, some ginger, perhaps some chilies and some soy sauce instead of salt (although mostly I'll add the salt/soy sauce later). I'm usually doing this to create broth and pre-cooked beef for stews or cold for sandwiches, and freeze it cut/portioned accordingly if it's not used up right away.
For the stir-fry or similar dishes, I made the recipe as listed but without the beef, and then add the pre-cooked meat just after frying up everything else so it can soak up the sauces and aromas well. If the recipe allows, I'll let everything simmer for a few minutes afterwards, too, so the aromas mix even better. The texture of the meat is obviously different, but as we care more about the taste this works fine for us.

My parents, sisters and me share a quart of a pasture-fed young cow or bull each year; we always get a share of all parts of the animal, bones included. Since we have different needs and preferences we split it up accordingly, so I'm usually mostly having boiling beef and roasts. We don't usually eat roasts as such, though, so I'm trying out all kinds of recipes which ask for different types of meat. So far, everything was delicious, and I also got quite some experience in how to tweak also Asian recipes to the ingredients I have.