It all started with a taste for a stew with a kick and that little bit different. Something slightly Chinese style. Not that there is anything wrong with your traditional beef stew but sometimes we all fancy a variation on a good classic. Going through my collection of cookery books I stumbled across one by River Cottage where I found the recipe for Shin of beef with ginger and soy. It sounded amazing.

The recipe itself calls for about 1.5 kg shin of beef on or off the bone. I had only 1 kg of meat off the bone, however, I’ve decided to keep the proportions of all the other ingredients the same as if I was cooking with 1.5 kg of meat and I think the flavours were spot on.

Generally, as stews go, this one pretty much takes care of itself. It requires long and slow cooking and if you are patient it will reward you with wonderful flavour so if you can make it a day in advance you are on to a winner 🙂 . Impatients peeps, however, will not be disappointed either.

The most absorbing part of the entire active prep is browning your meat. There are different schools of thought regarding that. Some say that browning your meat improves the flavour of the dish, some say it doesn’t. Personally, I haven’t noticed any difference in flavour but maybe my palate isn’t sophisticated enough 😉 . I do, however, like the appearance of the browned meat more. I’ll leave it to you to decide but if you go the browning route, make sure you don’t overcrowd the pan you brown your meat in, as to get that lovely colour your beef needs some room to breathe.

Original recipe calls for two fresh or dried chillies popped in whole for the duration of cooking. Single chilli was good enough for us and gave a nice, gentle kick but if you like your food pretty spicy than, by no means, go for two.

Before I finally move on to recipe itself I wanted to add that this stew goes really well with any type of Chinese noodles. We, however, enjoyed it with lovely German variety “Spätzle” ,which we love, and as it was “Taste of Alps” week at Lidl, had surplus of (love the stuff). Don’t forget some lovely steamed greens (we had Cavolo Nero).

Hope you enjoy the recipe and please stop by and let me know what you thought.

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Soy and Ginger Beef Stew (Chinese Style)

Author Jo Allison

Ingredients

About 1kg shin of beef cut into 2cm thick slices
6 large garlic cloves thinly sliced
One 10-12cm long piece or roughly 2 thumb sized nuggets of fresh ginger thinly sliced
3 Tbsp Redcurrant Jelly
150 ml light soy sauce
350-500 ml apple juice
2 Tbsp cider vinegar
1-2 fresh or dried chillies
1-2 Tbsp sunflower oil
salt pepper

Instructions

Heat 1 Tbsp of oil in a heavy-based, oven safe casserole and brown your meat (seasoned with salt and pepper) in batches to avoid overcrowding the pan. Turn the pieces so that they colour evenly. Set aside.
Once you've browned all your meat put ginger and garlic to the pan and cook them until they soften but not brown. Add your jelly, soy sauce and meat back to the casserole and cover with apple juice so that it just covers the meat.
Add vinegar, whole chilli and good grind of black pepper (you will not need any more salt due to the saltiness of the soy sauce).
Cover and placed in an oven preheated to 120°C and cook for 3hrs until the meat is completely tender.