steamed beef with sichaun salted mustard stem - 四川榨菜蒸牛肉

Chinese cuisine is very expansive. Often than not in the West the country's cuisines are very poorly represented. The stereo type of Chinese food hardly represents what its people eats, especially before globalization. In recent years I like to rediscover some of the less popular dishes that used to be common home cooking. Many Asian countries has extensive preserved food. The range of food that is preserved with salt is extensive. Some vegetables are preserved in salt only to be used as cooking condiments.

Here I prepare a dish that use one of hundreds of different preserved vegetable. It is Sichaun salted mustard stem (四川榨菜). One problem with sourcing the Sichaun salted mustard stem (四川榨菜) in the West is, it is translated to English in many ways and often poorly, outright wrong. There are many variants of salted mustard, and some are simply not mustard at all. Even I have a hard time telling what I get through inspecting what is inside the packaging. Often only in bringing it home and inspecting it after removing from the vacuum package that I can confirm what I really bought. This time I bought the right thing. The Sichaun salted mustard stem (四川榨菜). It is used as a cooking condiment, and in this dish adds most of the saltiness (seasoning) to the dish.

this Sichaun salted mustard stem (四川榨菜) is from Taiwan

it is quite salty so I slice them quite thin

often the real Sichaun salted mustard stem (四川榨菜) has hot chili peppers added but this one does not

This dish is supposed to be quite salty, which goes against the current common wisdom of a diet of high salt content is bad for you. Little do these people know that the purpose of a salty dish is so you don't overeat the meat, hence control your calories intake. Simpletons can be dangerous with not knowing what they do not know.

With most of the Chinese dishes involve the use of salted vegetable most requires the addition of sugar or something sweet to balance the brininess. In this dish I use a few pieces of Chinese aged tangerine skins to add fragrance. There are also hot chili peppers and garlic, oyster sauce, and soy sauce. The beef is marinated beforehand. All the ingredients are hand mixed and then steamed.

all the ingredients readily to be mixed together and steamed

the ingredients mixed together and ready to be steamed for about 8 minutes

dishes like this are to be eaten with a bowl of plain rice

because of the saltiness only very little is consumed - this dish can serve an entire family; the left over can be re-steamed for the next meal - the beef tastes better upon re-steaming

here is served with a plate of stir fry Chinese choy sum 菜心

 served with some watercress blanched in pork bone broth

here are two other dishes made with salt preserved vegetable and dried little fish