Susan Jung’s recipe for red-cooked beef cheeks and braised pork belly with taro

This Hong Kong winter has been maddeningly wishy-washy – a couple of days of warm weather, then it gets cool before quickly turning warm again. Fickle temperatures make planning meals difficult – you buy the ingredients for a cold-weather braised dish but before you have time to cook them, it’s hot and you crave something light instead. These dishes are for when the temperature drops below 20 degrees Celsius.

Red-cooked beef cheeks or brisket
There are many regional variations on red-cooked dishes, so named because of the colour of the sauce (although, in truth, it’s more brown than red, but “brown-cooked” doesn’t sound as appetising). Beef cheeks are wonderful in a red-cooked dish but brisket – preferably layered with tendon – is also delicious. There are two ways to do this (well, three, if you count sous-vide, but not every­one has the equipment for that): in a pressure cooker (which will result in tender meat in about 30 minutes) or low and slow in a heavy pot on the stove. I’ve given the recipe for the latter method; if you use a pressure cooker (or an immersion circulator, for sous-vide) start with only 300ml of stock; you can add more later, if needed.

1kg beef cheeks or brisket
30ml cooking oil
1 tsp Sichuan peppercorns
A 35 gram chunk of ginger, peeled
1-2 whole dried chillies
2 whole star anise
½ tsp whole black peppercorns
6cm cinnamon stick
1 whole piece of chun pei (dried tangerine peel)
40ml rice wine
60ml soy sauce
30 grams Chinese rock sugar (or use granulated)
1 tsp fine sea salt, or more to taste
About 500ml unsalted chicken or beef stock, preferably home-made
2-3 spring onions

Put the Sichuan peppercorns into an unoiled skillet and heat over a medium flame. Shake the pan constantly so the peppercorns don’t burn and cook them until lightly toast­ed. Lightly crush the ginger by hitting it with the side of a cleaver.

Cut the beef cheeks or brisket into 3cm chunks. Bring a large pot of water to the boil, add the beef and blanch for about 30 seconds. Drain the beef, rinse with cold water and drain again. Dry the beef with paper towels.

Heat the cooking oil in a heavy pan (prefer­ably enamelled cast-iron) placed over a medium flame. When the oil is hot, sear the beef chunks on all sides (it will spatter furiously); do this in batches – do not crowd the pan. When the pieces are browned, put them in a bowl while searing the rest of the meat.