Chinese Beef

Beef is by far a less common form of meat in Chinese food than pork. Beef is more common in Szechuan cuisine than it's in other Chinese cuisines, perhaps because of the widespread use of oxen in the area. Stir fried beef is frequently cooked until chewy, while steamed beef is sometimes coated with cornstarch to produce a rich gravy. The primary reason that the Chinese don't eat much beef is most likely that it's not as versatile a meat as pork from the viewpoint of Chinese cooking. Beef meat balls will never be as tender as pork. While for most of Chinese recipes, pork will make reasonably good dishes with beef, they don't make such easily successful dishes with beef as with pork. Some recipes are specifically good for beef or are better with beef than with pork and therefore are mainly a beef recipe. You may always use your very own judgment about interchanging the recipes including beef and pork. You know of course that pork should be cooked thoroughly, while beef can be eaten rare.

This compensates in part for the hard consistency of beef than pork. The Chinese usually use tenderloin or sirloin for beef slices and shredded in stir fry dishes. For stewing, shin and shank meat in whole pieces or in large cubes are usually used. The Chinese don't use other big pieces of meat because it's longer tissues plus they stiffen more when stewing and come out less tender. Meat shreds, cubesshould be dried well before they're put in a hot wok.