A Beijing Hui Muslim classic: beef shanks & eggs

Beijing’s Hui Muslim dishes are without a doubt some of my favorite in the region. Much of this has to do with the creative ways in which every bit of an animal is used. In the West, we tend to toss out the less popular parts of an animal, but that is not the case in China. Not only are Chinese cooks frugal – which they most definitely are – but they also appreciate the intriguing textures that the heart, stomach, and shin have to offer.

These variety meats are the kind of things that every single Beijing-style Muslim eatery I’ve ever eaten in offers. If they are a small, family-run place, they will display them right in the front window, the same way Cantonese delis hang ducks and pigs near the sidewalk. The flavors are rich and savory, and based on a spice-infused marinade that is colored by soy sauce and slightly sweetened with rock sugar.

Edible stained glass window

Depending on what time of day it is and how hot it is outside, we might have a plate full of cool, braised liver, tendons, heart, tripe, and so forth to start off a meal. Or perhaps a breakfast sandwich of tender, braised shin shaved into paper-thin slices and packed into a sesame-paste biscuit, or shaobing. Dinner might include some eggs, bean curd, and thick seaweed cooked in that same braising liquid, as well. Alongside this, we would usually order some millet porridge and a plate of stir-fried greens.

Beef shins are a cut of meat that really deserves your love. They’re cheap, nothing but completely edible, and are ribboned with thin tendons that turn into translucent, tender codas between the gorgeous meat. I mean, look at that photo above and tell me that isn’t drop-dead beautiful.

These shins will be soft and as relaxed as a kitten when they are raw – see the photo below. As soon as they hit hot water, though, they will shrink up into tense little balls and stay that way, so don’t worry about crowding your pan at the very beginning. This shrinkage is due to the tendons, which will become incredibly hard at this point and only dissolve into a delectable gumminess after a slow braise.

Raw tendons

I get my beef shins at a Chinese market in Oakland that sells them in sets of six or so in plastic bags, so that is what I’ve gotten used to as my basic measure. However, there’s nothing stopping you from dividing the recipe in half or less, or even multiplying it a couple of times for parties. Be sure a make the braised eggs with this fabulous sauce after you pluck out the beef – they are just as delicious as the shins.

Braised beef shanks and eggs
Lŭ níujiàn, lŭ dàn 滷牛腱、滷蛋

Beijing
Serves 8 to 12

Beautiful beautiful beautiful

6 boneless beef shins 
Water, as needed
½ cup thinly sliced ginger 
4 green onions 
6 tablespoons regular soy sauce 
4 star anise 
½ stick cinnamon 
1 tablespoon fennel seeds 
2 teaspoons Sichuan peppercorns 
¼ cup rock sugar, or ½ piece of brown slab sugar 
2 dried Thai chilies, optional 
1 piece cured tangerine peel, optional 
1 cup rice wine, optional 

12 to 18 small to medium eggs, boiled until firm (see directions below) and peeled

To serve:

Thinly sliced green onions

Toasted sesame oil

1. Place the shins in a wide pot, cover them with water, bring the water to a boil over high heat, lower the heat, simmer the meats for about 10 minutes, and then dump out the water. Rinse the scum off of the meat and the pan.

2. Return the meats to the pan, and add all of the ingredients up through the optional rice wine, as well as enough water to cover the meats. Bring the pan to a boil and then lower the heat to a simmer. Cook the shins until they can easily be pierced with a chopstick, about 3 hours. You can also make these in a pressure cooker: braise on high for about an hour. Remove the shins to a bowl, cool, and then refrigerate them for easier slicing.

Ready for the braise

3. Add the peeled eggs to the strained sauce. Bring the uncovered pan to a boil, reduce the heat to low, and slowly simmer the eggs for an hour or two, adding only as much water as needed to keep them more or less submerged. Cool the eggs and sauce to room temperature and let them sit in the sauce for at least two days so that the flavors really permeate the eggs.

4. To serve, slice the shanks crosswise (against the grain) into really thin slices. Fan these out onto a plate or a bowl of hot noodles. Cut the eggs into wedges. Drizzle them with a bit of the sauce, if you like, or simply a bit of toasted sesame oil and a sprinkle of green onions. 

How to correctly boil eggs

Prick the round ends with a sharp pin or tack, as this gives that bubble of air inside the shell an escape route and so prevent the eggs from cracking.

Braised eggs - tan down to the yolks

Place the eggs in a pot of warm water, and bring the water to a boil over high heat, stirring the eggs very often as they come to a boil so that the yolks become centered in the whites. Lower the heat to a simmer and cook them for about 8 minutes. Dump out the water, cover them with cool tap water, and then peel them when they have cooled down.

Whenever you make hard-boiled eggs for recipes like this, look for two things: the smallest eggs possible, and eggs that are not too fresh. Smaller eggs absorb the sauce’s flavors faster, while older eggs are easier to peel. Also, if you gently stir the eggs as they are coming to a boil, you will keep the yolks centered in the still-soft whites; once the water barely comes to a boil, the whites will have set and you can stop stirring. Never boil the eggs at full blast, though, as this will make the whites tough. A gentle simmer is enough – they will also be cooked in the sauce, so there’s no need to overdo it. When cooking hardboiled eggs, keep the lid off, otherwise pressure will build up in the pan and the egg whites will have a honeycomb texture.

My favorite Beijing Muslim bread

One of my favorite reasons for dining in Beijing Muslim restaurants is their selection of homemade grilled breads. 

These range from huge, thick wheels — much like the baked Uyghur breads that go so well with soups and stews — all the way down to delicate wheat wrappers that are used to envelop various stir-fries much like a burrito.

The crusty rounds that lure us back time and again, though, is this one, Grilled Sesame Breads with Green Onions. 

I think I love this one best because of the texture: crunchy toasted sesame seeds on the outside, wisps of flaky bread on the inside, lots of green onions to season every bite, and a definite moistness in the layers that offers perfect contrast to the crust.

Sprinkle on onions

Ordering breads in these restaurants can be tricky because not only the English names often offer little clue of what it is they are offering, but even the Chinese is far from uniform. 

The second-best way to deal with this dilemma is to scout around the room for what it is you want and then point it out to the server. The best choice, as always, is to make it yourself. If you’ve made bread before, you’ll find this very easy indeed.

Grilled sesame breads with green onions

Business letter fold

Zhīmá fāmiàn cōngyóubĭng 芝麻發麵蔥油餅

Beijing Muslim

Serves 4

Dough:

¾ cup warm water

1 teaspoon yeast

2 teaspoons sugar

1¾ cups Chinese flour (or 2 parts all-purpose plus 1 part pastry flour), plus extra for kneading

1 teaspoon peanut or vegetable oil

1 teaspoon baking powder

Seasonings:

And once again

4 teaspoons toasted sesame oil

¾ teaspoon sea salt

2 or 3 green onions, trimmed and finely chopped
Water as needed

3 tablespoons raw white sesame seeds

1. Place the water in a bowl or cup and sprinkle the yeast and then the sugar on top. Gently mix the yeast into the water and then give it about 20 minutes to foam. If it does not foam, toss out this mixture and get fresh yeast. Have the flour in a medium work bowl. Stir the yeast mixture into the flour to form a soft dough. Knead this until it no longer sticks to your hands. Form the dough into a ball. Use the oil to coat the inside of a clean work bowl, place the dough in the bowl, cover, and let it rise until double in size.

Roll out

2. Sprinkle the baking powder on a smooth work surface. Punch down the dough, form it into a ball, and place it on the baking powder. Knead these together until smooth, adding more flour if necessary to keep the dough from sticking. When it is as soft as an earlobe, cover the dough and let it rest for around 20 minutes.

3. Sprinkle the top and bottom of the dough with a little bit of flour. Roll it out into a rectangle about ¼ inch thick. Rub the sesame oil all over its surface, and then evenly sprinkle on the salt and green onions. For directions on how to fold the dough, see the photos on the right. To make the dough easier to roll out in the next step, cover it and let it rest for about 20 minutes.

Nudge square into circle

4. Form the dough out into a circle. The easiest way to do this is to gently pull on the edges and change the square into a rounder shape. Then, use your rolling pin to roll it out from the center toward the edge until you have a circle about 8 inches in diameter.

5. Pour the sesame seeds into a rimmed dish. Lightly moisten the top of the dough circle with water, and then place the circle upside down on top of the sesame seeds. Gently press the circle all over into the seeds. Now, moisten the other side of the circle and then flip it over onto the seeds and press this side, too, so that both sides of the dough are covered with sesame seeds.

6. Slide the circle back onto your work surface and pat the seeds and the bread together so that the circle is again 8 inches across (or the size of your skillet). (The bread can be made ahead of time up to this point and frozen.) Place the circle in a cool, clean, nonstick skillet, cover, and let the dough rise for about 45 minutes.

Roll on sesame seeds

7. Place the skillet over medium-low heat, cover, and slowly grill the bread until it is browned on the bottom and the seeds begin to pop. Carefully flip the bread over, cover again, and fry the second side until it too is golden. Remove to a cutting board, slice the bread into wedges, and serve. To reheat, grill it lightly on both sides or toast in a small oven, but — as with all breads — do not microwave it.

The most beautiful dish in the world

I can think of few foods that are as gorgeous as this one. Slices of chilled tendon look like they belong in a great cathedral rather than on a plate, and they shimmer and refract the light in almost unearthly ways.

In spite of that, they also are amazingly delicious and have a delightfully snappy texture that teases the palate. Beef tendons are also inexpensive ingredients and easy to cook, so there really is no excuse not to fall completely in love with this extraordinary dish.

And if all that was not enough, you can make this dish your own by seasoning it with pretty much whatever you like. I have provided some basic guidelines, but they really are little more than suggestions, as you just can’t go wrong here.

For example, these thin slivers first charmed their way into my heart at a Nanjing friend’s home, where he used a gently sweet soy marinade in the background with warm spices like star anise and ginger supplying the necessary fireworks. That is because tendons are actually completely flavorless; they are loved solely for their texture in China and for their collagen, which is considered especially wonderful as a supplement for the elderly, as it strengthens joints.

Afternoon light through a slice

Tendons can be used in many different ways, of course. They lend a lovely stickiness and body to soups and stews, leaving sensuous smears on the lips and giving the teeth something to sink into like luxurious pillows. Tendons are also beautiful in certain braises, especially this one from Zhejiang that is intensely seductive.

But no other recipe quite is as visually stunning as this dish. If we were ever able to build a temple to great food, I have the perfect design for its windows…  By the way, the Chinese and English names for this dish are my own. It is invariably called simply “braised tendons” (lŭ níujīn 滷牛筋), which does not even begin to hint at what is in store.

Stained-glass tendons

Cǎisè bōlí níujīn 彩色玻璃牛筋

Beijing Muslim

Serves 12 or more as an appetizer

4 beef tendons, cleaned

Filtered water

1 inch fresh ginger, thinly sliced

4 green onions

1 cup rice wine (Taiwanese Mirin)

 

Simply gorgeous

Suggested seasonings (all or some):

1 to 2 tablespoons smoked paprika

2 tablespoons regular soy sauce or sea salt to taste

2 star anise

½ stick cinnamon

3 cloves garlic, peeled

1 tablespoon Sichuan peppercorns

1 tablespoon fennel seeds

1 piece rock sugar (the size of a small egg)

1. Prepare this dish at least a day before you wish to serve it. Rinse the tendons and place them in a saucepan. Cover the tendons with water, bring the water to a boil, and simmer them for about 5 minutes. Dump out the water and rinse both the tendons and the pot to remove any scum.

2. Return the tendons to the pan and cover with filtered water. Add the ginger, green onions, and rice wine. Bring the pan to a full boil over high heat and then lower the heat to a gentle simmer. Cook the tendons for around 3 hours, or until they are barely tender.

3. At this point, add whatever seasonings you like and simmer the tendons for another hour or so until they are completely tender; I like to place the spices in a bag or spice ball so that they can be tossed out easily once the tendons are cooked. Taste the sauce and adjust the seasoning; remember that the flavors will be muted since the tendons are to be served cold, so over-season them a bit. Remove the pan from the heat and let it cool down a bit.

Raw tendons

4. Prepare a loaf pan by rinsing it out with cool water. Use tongs to lift the tendons and arrange them in the loaf pan, and then strain as much of the sauce onto the tendons to barely cover them; the rest of the sauce can be reserved and used in soups or for noodles. Cool the tendons completely, cover with plastic wrap, and chill overnight.

5. Rinse the bottom and sides of the loaf pan under very hot tap water to loosen the tendons, and then release the solid aspic out onto a cutting board. Use a very sharp knife to slice the tendons as thinly as possible; cut each slice in half, if you wish. Serve on a bed of fresh cilantro or other crunchy greens.

Tips:

Cleaned beef tendons can be found in many Asian and Latin groceries. I usually get mine in the frozen section of my favorite Korean store.

Raw tendons are impossible to cut, so leave them whole.

Blanching the tendons will get rid of most of the fat in this dish and also leave only a clean, neutral background for whatever seasonings you like.