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Chinese homestyle braised beef tendon w/ onions


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Every saturday I go to what is probably the most authentic, homestyle Chinese joint in all of North Carolina. It's called the Joy Luck Club, and it's a small diner located in the fron of the most popular Chinese supermarket in this state, Grand Asia Market. If they sell congee, you know they're legit... :raz:

Whenever they have the tendon dish, I always get it, and every time I eat it, I wish that I could recreate it at home.

Most of my searches have led me to either Ma La Beef Tendon, or some Chinese or Vietnamese variation of a tendon noodle dish. Both of these are NOT what I'm looking for.

Its basically tendons, in a dark, thick, oily, somewhat spicy, brown sauce, with onions in it. Nothing else. It's served HOT.

I did however, find this site tonight (or morning really, at least here) that looks almost exactly what I've been looking for, except this recipe uses spring onions instead of what I think are just regular yellow onions at the Joy Luck Club.

Problem is, the recipe isn't too specific, using "some stock", "1 bowl cornstarch water" and so forth to describe the ingredients. Not very helpful. The cooking times are also, unfortunatly, absent....

Cut tendon and scallion into sections.

Put oil in a wok and add scallion sections. Deep-fry till golden yellow. Take them out and place in a bowl.

Put oil in the wok and add part of the scallions, oil, aniseeds and gingers. Stir-fry till aromatic. Add stock and salt and bring to boil. Take condiments out. Put in the tendon and deep-fried scallion sections and soy sauce. Simmer over a low fire to absorb flavor and then turn to a high fire to reduce the juice. Put in sugar for coloring and cornstarch-water to thicken. Sprinkle sesame oil and serve.

I know that tendons, because of their purpose for existance, need to be cooked for a while (which may be a slight understatement) to make them edible. I think this could be converted into a GREAT crockpot recipe, but then again, what do I know?

So here's the deal, I really need this recipe, more than you might think. I'm actually in love with this recipe, and it kills me to not be able to make it when I want. The lack of information on the web (shocking, isn't it?) and one potential, yet poorly worded recipe that taunts me is only making my dillema that much worse. :wacko:

[EDIT] Link to the site (with picture) is here:

http://www.chinatown-online.com/recipe/tendon.htm

Edited by jtnippon1985 (log)
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As another request, and not to take any more real estate on the main forum, I was wondering if anyone knew about this:

There is another dish at the Joy Luck Club that is a noodle dish. The noodles are different, I can't tell exactly what they're made of but they are very sticky, and usually have large masses clumped together (lack of oil perhaps) and they kind of have this cornstarchy, gelatinous (very subtle) texture. They are made in some kind of sauce, which dyes them brown, perhaps such a simple sauce made from soy sauce and other seasonings. The sauce is near non-existant in the final dish, it doesn't pool in excess or anything. I don't remember any other major ingredients, maybe some onions, but that's about it...not vegetables, no meat, no tofu, no fungus, etc etc.. It's all dumped in a hot-bar pan to keep warm so I dont know if their stir-fried or perhaps, steamed in a commercial steamer, though I doubt that.

Any takers?

[EDIT] I'm almost positive the noodles are rice vermicelli, because the noodles had the same texture and color of the rice vermicelli commonly found in Vietnamese spring rolls (not the fried variety)

Edited by jtnippon1985 (log)
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I'm almost positive the noodles are rice vermicelli, because the noodles had the same texture and color of the rice vermicelli commonly found in Vietnamese spring rolls (not the fried variety)

They use mung bean threads ("Fun See" in Cantonese) in the Vietnamese fried spring rolls, which is different from rice vermicelli ("Mai Fun" in Cantonese).

W.K. Leung ("Ah Leung") aka "hzrt8w"
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Its basically tendons, in a dark, thick, oily, somewhat spicy, brown sauce, with onions in it. Nothing else. It's served HOT.

Are you ready to make it jtnippon? Cooking tendons takes 2 to 3 hours. I remember that you wouldn't want to spend over 10 minutes to make jook.

Here is one way to make it. Same procedure, just use beef tendon instead of beef shank:

Beef Shank Braised with Five Spice and Soy Sauce (五香牛腱)

W.K. Leung ("Ah Leung") aka "hzrt8w"
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Its basically tendons, in a dark, thick, oily, somewhat spicy, brown sauce, with onions in it. Nothing else. It's served HOT.

Are you ready to make it jtnippon? Cooking tendons takes 2 to 3 hours. I remember that you wouldn't want to spend over 10 minutes to make jook.

Here is one way to make it. Same procedure, just use beef tendon instead of beef shank:

Beef Shank Braised with Five Spice and Soy Sauce (五香牛腱)

I think we need to have "project" in here to explain - even for jook. I saw a post from him in another forum. What would he do with sheetz's nor mai gai? :hmmm::laugh::laugh:

Dejah

www.hillmanweb.com

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Gah, such hostility!! LOL! No, actually one of my quirks on cooking is to try and find ways to speed up traditional long recipes and such. Some you obviously can't do.

By the way, I cooked some jook last night, overnight actually for this morning. I really don't mind the cooking time, it was more of wanting to see if the taste could be replicated by taking a shortcut. The cream of rice variation I made this afternoon didn't come out half bad though. Needs some tweaking...

Also, I have some pictures of the tendons and noodle dish that I got from Joy Luck Club today, I'll post those as soon as I can. I also must have forgotten, but they always include red and green bell peppers in with the tendon dish.

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Actually, before I officially call it a night, I wanted to provide a quick follow up with something I found just a few seconds ago:

Beef Tendon and Turnip Stew.

I found a blog entry talking about Ken Hom and a variation of this recipe in one of his books. I'm sure that the peppers would thrown in about 5 minutes before serving unlike the turnip, which is put in about 30 minutes before serving.

Link to blog article: http://baconpress.blogspot.com/2006/01/love-me-tendon.html

Or it could be just Sichuan red cooked beef, using only tendon. Dunno...

Edited by jtnippon1985 (log)
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UPDATE

Here are the pictures. I hope they help anyone that is trying to help me figure this out, with better determining what the names of these dishes might be.

WARNING: THE LINKED PICTURES PICTURES ARE HIGH RESOLUTION

WARNING #2: ImageShack does have a popup on their page, nothing malicious though.

The tendon dish:

1000911fl2.th.jpg

The noodle dish:

1000907zl5.th.jpg

The whole package (includes spicy tofu and the obligatory rice buried underneath):

1000915zo9.th.jpg

Thanks again for looking.

Edited by jtnippon1985 (log)
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The noodles do look like mung bean threads.

They look pretty thick for fun see. Could they be the Korean style sweet potato or potato starch noodles for chap chae?

Dejah

www.hillmanweb.com

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I agree with Dejah, the noodles look like Korean sweet potato noodles.

I'm not sure what the names of the dishes would be but it seems like the tendon dish might be five spiced tendon and then when it cools, cut it up and stir fry it with some sweet bell peppers.

The noodles looks like it's stir fried with soy sauce (light and dark) and then sprinkled with sesame seeds.

Unfortunately, it's hard to tell what ingredients are in the dishes without tasting them. I hear FedEx has next day delivery! :biggrin:

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It may (but probably wont) help to note that the owners of the restaurant are Mandarin speaking, so probably from Mainland China, and that these are all home-style dishes, NOT banquet fare. I doubt that'd be something that would narrow it down though...

Again thanks for all the help and suggestions. I'm going to try stir frying muing bean noodles with soy sauce, corn starch noodles with soy sauce, and then buy sweet potato noodles with soy sauce and see how it comes out.

Edited by jtnippon1985 (log)
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How so? Please enlighten me.

The main problem with cooking mung bean thread is when when you use them in a stir-fry dish. Just nake sure you add liquid/broth after you stir-fry the threads a minute or so. Otherwise, they will clump. Let them simmer until all the liquid is absorbed. Ready to eat!

The potato noodles are easy to work witj. Just cook them like any noodles. They don't clump.

Wish I could make chap chae right now...maybe...

Dejah

www.hillmanweb.com

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I've made jap chae with my friend who's Korean. What we usually do is cook the noodles in boiling water until they're done (few minutes) and then we toss them in whatever meat and veggies we have on hand for the dish. And she uses alot of sesame oil!

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I've made jap chae with my friend who's Korean.  What we usually do is cook the noodles in boiling water until they're done (few minutes) and then we toss them in whatever meat and veggies we have on hand for the dish.  And she uses alot of sesame oil!

My Korean students have made this for me, and I made it once from the book they gave me. The sesame oil makes the dish as far as I'm concerned.

The recipe doesn't tell me how many grams of fibre, so I haven't got it figured out as to WW points. Bruce? Does Mrs. C Sapidus know?

Dejah

www.hillmanweb.com

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