Hunan style beef stir fry—a dish popular across the country. This is the authentic Chinese version.
As a foodie who loves spicy food, Hunan food is one of my top choices; even sometimes Hunan style dishes are too spicy for me. Hunan cuisine usually features fresh chili and short term picked chili peppers for example this salted Hunan chili.
There are several versions inside China, mostly with essential pickled yellow pepper. We call this as 小米椒. It might be difficult to find outside China. You can try to pickle some at home or replace with other fresh chili pepper+ 1 teaspoon of vinegar (used in the stir fry sauce). This little pickled yellow pepper enjoys a really high popularity in China in different cuisines (mainly in Hunan and Sichuan cuisine). It presents a unique sour flavor bought by the fermentation. If you love to make some at home, check this post.
And celery can be replace with coriander. But I highly recommend using celery in this recipe as long as you do not hate it. And it is very important to note that even you need to make a larger batch, do you stir fry too many beef once!! The large amount of beef will immediately make the temperature lower down greatly and thus creating unqualified wok temperature. To keep the beef tender, you need to use highest fire and limit the time. I do not photo the stir fry steps because I am alone at home and cannot wait for around 10 seconds to take pictures.
- 200 g beef tenderloin
- 2 long green peppers
- 3 long red peppers
- 1/2 cup pickled yellow pepper
- 1 cup celery
- 2 garlic cloves , chopped
- 1 thumb ginger , chopped
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda , can be used for tendering the meat, optional
- small pinch of salt
- 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
- 3 tablespoons cooking oil
- 1 tablespoon cooking wine
- 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon starch
- small pinch of salt
- pinch of pepper
- 1/2 tablespoon sesame oil
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Cut beef into thin slices (as thin as possible). If you are not skilled at cutting, frozen the beef for around 10 or 15 minutes before cutting.
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Transfer beef into a large bowl and then add cooking wine, light soy sauce, starch, salt and pepper. Mix generally and them add sesame oil. Combine everything well. Set aside for 15 minutes.
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Prepare all the side ingredients, cut peppers, celery, garlic and ginger.
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Heat up cooking oil in wok until really hot and then fry the beef slices for around 30 seconds. Transfer out.
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Return the extra oil to wok, fry garlic, ginger and all the peppers until aroma. Add celery and sprinkle a pinch of salt too. Return beef, add light soy sauce and give a quick fry. Transfer and serve with steamed rice immediately.
Serve with steamed rice. It is really comforting!
Have just discovered this site and I am blown away about how good it is.
Your English is good enough for me. Thanks again for the great recipes.
Thanks Iris. You are so sweet.
I love this recipe. I used chicken instead and it came out delicious. I didnt find anything you said hard to understand and definitely not weird. Keep up the good work!
Thank!
i am so excited to try this recipe tonight!
i have all ingredients at hand except for the pickled yellow peppers. are they hot (spicy) peppers? i’m trying to see if i can substitute latin american pickled peppers (which are very spicy) for the chinese peppers.
Those pickled yellow peppers are quite spicy too. I believe the version you mentioned can be a good substitute. It is actually pickled wild peppers. Let me know how it turns out. Happy cooking!
I know the yellow peppers that are used in this recipe, and I have not found them in the US. I did find a pepper that is similar in taste, maybe a little less sweet but just as hot. They are Cock Brand Pickled Red Chilli (Whole), and are imported by Thai World Import &Export Co.,LTD.
https://www.amazon.com/Cock-Brand-Pickled-Chilli-Whole/dp/B07GQMG678
Matt,
That seems workable. By the way, if you get fresh peppers, you can pickle them at home.
Great writing. I am so impressed, also i never imagined Hunan Regional Cuisine was this well known worldwide.
Do you think is very similar to Szechuan Cuisine? Love your Blog, keep the good job going!
They two might be a little bit similar for people who are not so familiar with the two ones. But Sichuan peppercorn is not frequently used in Hunan cuisine to create the numbing taste. In addition, the two cuisines have different pepper preference.