just a simple braised beef flank cut

For Western folks it may comes as a surprise what some Asians like the way the flank steak is cut and used. First in North America flank steak used to be regarded as undesirable (as early Chinese immigrants) and sold as sub par cuts.


The misplaced health consciousness starting around the 90s saw a big change in US consumer's attitude towards beef. With constant bombardments by the publish health establishments of eating low fat, avoid saturated fat making people scrambling to find the leaner cuts. The timing could not be better as Americans also discovered Chinese stirfry technique. All of a sudden flank steak became the poster child of lean cut of beef as American rushed to try the hands on stirfry, or just cooking reduce portion of beef.

flank steak with diaphragm lining - back; the one at the front is a piece of ox tail

I can tell you I never buy flank steak for stir fry. It is not a good cut for stir fry as it is too tough and dry and the one that has been trimmed is so overpriced. I would use many other cheap cuts. The best use of flank steak is to make braised beef prized for the special textures and chewiness. The most coveted cut is with a good portion of the lining tissue. I try to search to see what it is call to no avail. I believe it is the diaphragm lining that separate the flank muscle from the abdominal cavity. You are unlikely to find it in your supermarket, or even the butcher unless he is familiar with Asian cuts.

Here in Portland only since about 8 years ago that you can find them in some Asian grocery stores.

In Hong Kong everyone enjoys an occasion bowl of beef soup noodle. For most a good bowl of soup noodle is one of the many comfort food and most will crave them. For beef soup noodle flank cut is the basic must have. To me a really good beef soup noodle place would also have a lot of other beef offal. All these are braised together and the broth taste a lot more flavorful. Preparing very good beef offal are most challenging and good ones become more difficult to find as time goes by.

Some places only have flank cut and can do an incredible amount of business each day. You can see this one that serves the clear broth style in Sheung Wan in my other post.

This is a batch that I just made. It is incredibly simple but you have to control the timing and heat to achieve the optimum doneness. Cantonese foodies are very specific about the texture, doneness, flavor, the size of the pieces and how it is cut, and the right amount of fat when it comes to braised beef flank cut.

sorry for the out of focus photo - i made this batch in a small pressure-cooker

this is what the cross sections look like

served with asian chive - long ago i used to not care about asian chive

to complement the simple beef soup noodle a humbly prepared stirfry of morning glory with fish sauce would be quite fitting

 i use a french mild steel skillet for the ease of cleaning