I lugged back a suitcase of groceries from Tokyo. Within the pile were insulated bags containing beef. Bought cuts of daisetsu kogen beef from Kamikawa-cho in Hokkaido (「大雪高原牛」の生産地である上川郡上川町は). I wanted to boil up Cantonese braised beef stew (燜牛腩).
Japanese beef tends to be very marbled, even when they're not wagyu. I'm not fond of wagyu. Whatever termed as 'premium', is lost on my tastebuds. But if they're placed into a stew, I need those fats so that they remain tender after being braised for hours. Might as do a pot with these cuts of beef and see how it turns out. I don't use Instant Pots or pressure cookers, and I don't want them. I grew up learning how to control temperature and heat over charcoal and embers. The old-fashioned way of boiling it for hours over the stove works fine for me.
Brought back a mixture of short ribs and oxtail. I could buy the rest of the ingredients (shin, tripe and tendon, daikon and vegetables) from Meidi-ya. If I use short ribs, I usually leave out brisket. Heh. But the most favored cut of meat in my version is oxtail. #ImpieCooks2018
Gotta say I loved these ingredients. They seemed to make the stew rich and thick; rather different from how the previous versions tasted. This is quite a winning combination. Wheeeee. I'm not inclined to overdose on the chu hou sauce (柱候醬), tau cheong (fermented soy bean paste 豆醬) and oyster sauce. I omit salt and light soy sauce, as well as Chinese wine. I replace dried tangerine peel with fresh orange zest and the whole fruit. In another variation, it would become wine-braised oxtail stew best with mashed potatoes.
The man seems to really like this Cantonese-style beef stew. He slurpped lots of it and asked for a portion to be frozen to have it the following week. Happy to have the girlfriend over at the dinner table too. Nervous about feeding her (because I don't dare to feed friends with dishes that are all mine; scared the food won't be to their tastebuds), so I'm super appreciative that she made time to hop over on a work day, and is always so thoughtful to text me as she hops into a train or a cab so that I can put that fish in the steamer. 😉
6 comments:
We always brought back fruits and veggies but never meat except for sausages. Yah, the Baker-at-Home isn't too keen on wagyu marbling either. Local Donki at Somerset is pretty good for cheap and fresh veggies. But for meats, we usually stick to Meidi-Ya too.
I have lugged back frozen reindeer meat from Oslo too. Heh.
I haven’t bought any from our Donki yet. I might check out the one at 100AM when it opens. Because there’s a NTUC Finest in the basement, and a Cold Storage across at Icon. Hahahahahahaha. I can compare all I want.
Meidi-ya keeps its quality pretty well, so I welcome that.
Ooh, how long does it take to cook on the stove?
@coboypb: an hour for the tripe and tendon, then three hours for the rest all in over a big fire and small fire to simmer.
The Bakr-at-Home's Japanese friends gave their stamp of approval to the veggies at Donki but not their meats. They still head to Meidi-Ya for that.
@cavalock: Good choices!
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