Chilled beef shank with Asian ‘laosui’ 鹵水 spices
LaoSui is translated literately as ‘old water’. It is a hot brine with variety of spices – cloves, cinnamon bark, fennel, citric peel, Sichuan pepper, star anise, tsao ko, dry ginger and licorice root. LaoSui spices are versatile and frequently used to marinate meat and eggs. For this beef shank recipe, I used pre-packed LaoSui spices from an Asian store.
I picked up the beef shank from an Asian butcher – I used the ‘little shank’ rather than the ‘big shank’ so it is easier to slice. I like to make a large batch so the ‘LaoSui’ marinate is not wasted – cooked meat can be stored in fridge to enjoy over 2-3 days.
Recipe is as follows:
(to share, serves 6-8 people)
Ingredients
Marinated beef
- 500g-1kg beef shank
- 1 bag of LaoSui spices, 200g (picture below), place the spices in a cloth spice bag and tie it up
- 1 cup of soy sauce
- 1 cup of mushroom dark soy sauce
- 1 cup of Chinese yellow wine
- a few green shallot (white part preferred), chopped
Salad
- 1-2 continental cucumber, julienne
- 20g coriander, root part only, chopped
- 20g green shallot, white part only, chopped
Sauce
- 1tbs soy sauce
- 1 tbs sesame oil
- 1 tbs balsamic vinegar
- 2 clove of garlic, minced
- 1 chili, seeds removed, sliced
Garnish
- 10g coriander, green part only, chopped
- 10g green shallot, chopped
- 1 chili, seeds removed, sliced
Method
- Place beef shank in a pot, cover with room temperature water, bring to boil; remove from heat; rinse the meat under cold water to ‘clean’.
- Place the beef shank in a heavy casserole dish (cast iron would be ideal) and return to the cook top; add the bag of spices; soy sauce, mushroom soy sauce, wine and shallot; top with water enough to cover the meat; bring to boil; cover with lid; transfer to an preheated oven at 160c; cook for 30 minutes; turn off the oven but leave the casserole in the oven until the oven is cool.
- When the meat is cool, remove the meat from the dish; put in a container and leave in fridge overnight. To serve, thinly slice the beef against the grain.
- For the salad, mix all ingredients together and pour in 1 tbs of the sauce; mix well
- To assemble, lay the salad on a plate; place sliced beef on top; pour over more sauce; garnish with chopped coriander, green shallot and sliced chili.
