EDIT: IMPORTANT PAPAIN NOTES - we've had a few people make this, a couple reporting some nice successes... but unfortunately also a failure or two. An important thing to understand about papain is that it is basically the nuke in your 'tenderness' arsenal. Two things: (1) do NOT over marinate and (2) even if you scale up the recipe, do NOT scale up the papain. For marination, this isn't western-style "toss your ingredient in the fridge for 5 hours" marination - this is Chinese style "mix your ingredient, cook it soon" style of marination - we usually marinate stuff for anywhere between 5-15 minutes... do not exceed 30. This is my fault, because I didn't articulate that clearly in the recipe. In the past, I'd specify the marination times (usually call for ~10 minutes), but kind of stopped because it started to feel redundant, and the specific marination time usually doesn't really matter anyway (often at restaurants, they marinate literally right before cooking the ingredient). I feel like I should maybe get back to that, because in Western cooking 'marinade' often evokes over-night prep and such. And second, papain is an enzyme and doesn't scale linearly - if you're using 280g of beef, still use 1/4 tsp papain. Hell, if you're scared... use 1/8 tsp. Stuff's got some power to it. ________________ Hey guys, a few notes: 1. This was the first time I've every tried doing an 'oily pre-fry' side by side with passing through oil, and honestly? I was kind of surprised at how comparable they were. The pass through cooks things a bit more evenly, but texturally they were almost indistinguishable. 2. Also regarding the beef, we were using loin because often in China the beef's a little tougher than what's in the west (and unless you're looking for tenderloin, loin's pretty much a similar price to most other bits) - flank or round would also work well & be more economical. Also as a fun random aside, the specific beef that we were using in the video was actually yak meat. We have a vendor at our market that insists that the quality of the meat is better than some of the other beef you get here in the PRD, and I don't disagree. 3. As I've said in the past, when it comes to meat marinades... papain is basically the nuke in your "how can I make this more tender?" arsenal. Other candidates are (1) sodium carbonate (can be manufactured at home by baking baking soda for ~1 hr at ~150C) and (2) baking soda. Unlike pork, or even chicken - beef craves tenderizing agents. 4. The aluminum foil here is basically to avoid splatter/avoid having to clean up a sticky, saucy mess of a hotplate. We filmed a version without the aluminum foil for thumbnail/money shot purposes (which you can see in the very beginning of the video), and if you look closely, it's just... chaos. Going direct on a hotplate works fine if you're doing something dryer like cumin lamb, but if you're doing something saucy, the aluminum foil is a god send. Makes everything so, SO much easier to clean up. We did the aluminum foil trick in the video at first just to mimic the restaurant, but honestly? For a home cook I feel like it's *the* way to serve a hotplate, and we're going to be going that route from now on. 5. I know we've kind of been uploading a number of videos recently - it's basically because I consider stuff like the Q&A, the Yacai taste test, and the upcoming 4/1 video 'extra content' in my head. (Speaking of which, we'll be coming back with a proper recipe video - Cantonese Cha Chaan Teng Macaroni Soup - the Sunday after 4/1, together with Guizhou Rice Tofu the following week).
1. I've been doing a few (non-Chinese dishes for a while now where I briefly fry thin sliced beef in oil for such a brief period of time, but the flavours and textures really work for me. 4. I often shun any process that involves "wasting" foil, plastic wrap etc. But using foil to simplify the cooking and clean up has become something that I don't worry about so much. I figure that overall, I recycle so much of it anyway, and I use less energy and water by using the foil that goes into my recycling. I love the idea of this recipe, another gem to try in the future from you both, thank you :)
I know, right? I was at the wholesale market comparing different brands, and more than one vendor pushing me towards Heinz. I thought to myself "eh, maybe they're just thinking that the foreigner would prefer the foreign brand or something". Take four different brands home and, lo and behold, Heinz was heads-and-shoulders above the rest. What really cracked me up though was double-checking whether its available in the West... because of *course* the American brand that actually makes the best manufactured version of the sauce doesn't sell it in America. Obviously, haha. In any event, LKK with those fixes does work beautifully. But man, LKK's product line is variable as all hell. How the company the produces the best Char Siu sauce and Hoisin sauce can be so off the mark with their black pepper sauce is a head scratcher to me.
@@MSDarkspyro My best estimates: Because local folks in USA won't buy Better Heinz for, say, 30% more expensive prices compared with their competitor. However, foreigner folks are willing to buy Better Heinz, even _after_ they got their price jacked to 50% more compared to normal price, because, hey, good stuff.
You guys constantly give me everything I'm looking for in a Chinese cooking channel, plus your both very charming, which frankly is just the cherry on top. Don't ever stop
Papain is sold in the United States labeled as “meat tenderizer.” Some brands, such as Badia, contain the enzyme bromelain rather than papain. Anthony’s brand contains papain. The marinating period must be brief, however, as the enzymes quickly digest the meat and make it unpalatably mushy.
Flat Iron Steak with "Black Pepper Sauce" is the dish I had when I first went to a "Western food restaurant" in China as a child; Ironically, Black Pepper Beef now is my favorite in Panda Express and I believe it's their most authentic "Chinese dish"
I went to Hong Kong 10 years ago. I spend the last year looking on how to remake this taste. I have googled, searched on TH-cam, etc. And this is the first place where I find it. I have made a fried noodles food truck. And I will use this recipe for it! I will change the beef with minced meat, and with flat rice noodles. Thank you so much for sharing this.
😁 I remember too. Less than 2k when I found them. I think I was one of the first to support them on Patreon too. I'm old(ish) and watching them grow was like watching my own kids succeed. I'm so proud of them. A LOT of hard work goes in to every video. And they're so relatable. The information they give about every dish is way above and beyond what most creators go into. Jenn 🇨🇦
@@afraidcomet I'm old(ish), 😁 and my mum was a professional cook (she refused to be called a chef, though she totally was) so I learned at her elbow and have been cooking for 60 years! I'm a really, really good cook, but I'm no chef by any means. I don't have the "vision" chefs do. Probably like you do. Like mum could make something from almost nothing. She was able to visualize the meal. She put flavours together you'd think wouldn't work. But her specialty was pie. My gawd that woman could make pies! At one point she made 40 pies/day and all were sold out every day. If she moved from one restaurant to another all of her devotees moved too. She was so amazing. I chose another path and became a nurse, but I've always loved cooking. If you don't mind a couple questions ~don't answer if you don't want to. I understand. But that said~Do you have dishes that you enjoy making more than others? What's your favourite dish? What ethnicity of cooking do you like most? Mine is Greek food. I went to Greece years ago and absolutely fell in love with it. I really love making hearty winter foods. I get what I call "broody" in the fall and love making stews, chilies ~ all the comfort foods. I'm not a huge baker though. Not sure why. Except ~ and this is no lie~I baked a pie crust once and while removing it from the oven I dropped it. IT DID NOT BREAK! It was like a hockey puck. Hubby still tells that story 😁. So I decided unlike mum, pies were not my forte! These two are so very dedicated to being informative and their formula works so well. And I've always loved Steph's outros. I think they've got the formula perfected. I'm incredibly envious of you btw. A chef can be so creative and whip up a feast with a few ingredients. I wish you great success. EDIT: may I ask what YT channels you'd recommend for someone who's an experienced cook? Thanks for a reply. Jenn 🇨🇦 👋 👋 Hello from Canada
@@rhijulbec1 To be fair, chef doesn't mean cook, it means "chief." The chef is the head of the kitchen (or kitchens), which is also why some chefs historically haven't done much cooking themselves.
I remember the black pepper beef I used to get when I lived in Hong Kong was absolutely delicious 🤤. That peppery sweet yet a bit sour mix with that tender beef (which was even better if you let it stay wrapped on your table for five minutes as you eagerly wait lol) was the perfect accompaniment to multiple beers after work. Great video guys
Hi guys. Love your posts. A comment I might about Velvet Meat you mentioned in a previous post. Starch works, cooking to create that slippery mouth-feel that mimics the consistency of tender, juicy meat. The problem however is when you add it to any liquid i.e. sauce as the starch cloak simply floats off into the sauce and you loose the velvet texture. A cantonese chef taught me his family secret (yes! unbelievable! actually via his wife). He adds a modicum of eggwhite to the cornstarch/potato flour in the marinade. In the initial shallow or deep fry of the meat the albumen stabilised the starch, effectively glueing it to the meat and the result is a super-velvety coating. It's hard to have fresh eggwhite to hand so I used powdered egg white, about half the volume of starch. Try it.
“Talk to someone from the west they’ll probably tell you it’s chinese” “Talk to someone Chinese and they’ll tell you it’s from the west” “It’s probably from Hong Kong” You said the same thing three times.
I have to say that I both love and hate you for guilting me for using the pass through method for stir fries. It’s a total game changer, even though the extra step kind of annoys me as it just complicated the cooking order a little bit. Once again, great recipe!
As one who teaches YT creators, and who's been doing post-production for decades, I want to congratulate you on your production values, camera work, and overall editing. PLUS I love the subject. Five stars, you! Maybe a little color enhancing work, but otherwise.. great job.
Thanks for sharing the recipe! This is my favorite black pepper sauce! I especially love 黑椒牛仔骨 Black Pepper Short Ribs from Dim Sum restaurants! So savory and tender..
even without the papain powder, the rest of the marinade does pretty good work. my family never uses the papain powder, and it still comes out pretty good
I improvised with the ingredients i had. I did the usual marination with the beef, but for the sauce I used 1tbsp Yeo's black bean sauce, with 1 tsp pearl river black bean with oil and 1 tbsp ground black peppercorns, msg. OMG was better than the best Sizzling beef I have ever had. Sake makes a big difference too. AMAZING.
Hello, I just wanted to say that you and your partner do an amazing job! I have a 'Chinese Cooking' created TH-cam folder with recipies and your channel make up quite a few. I've become the cook for our family and I pride myself on finding authentic versions of Chinese dishes. Thank you for your content!
I finally made the black pepper beef but used the whole steak method and used your marinade technique and Heinz black pepper sauce. This is incredible. I used a prime grade tenderloin cut for the steak from Costco. Amazing. Thanks so much for your channel.
Last week there was a sales action of tenderloin in our near by super market. All the other stuff I have in the pantry. Hey, now I know what to cook. Thanky a lot! Greetings from Germany.
I love seeing how different parts of the world use similar cooking styles Watching this video, and coming from a Latino background, all I could think was "Chinese Fajitas" Definitely giving this a try soon!
Yumm - just made this & came out beautifully! Skipped the hotplate part and served on rice. Probably a sacrilege but this is a keeper. Thx for the great channel, learned so much from you guys!!
Surprised you're struggling to convince people to do a pass through oil! It's a really useful technique. It's given me amazing results every time and I just reuse some of the oil for the same dish later on and it ends up being fine.
Black pepper sauce has to be from Hong Kong and influenced by western ingredients. The version of the sauce my mom taught me uses regular tomato ketchup. Take that, person who asked the question about the lack of non-Chinese of ingredients and Chinese ethnocentrism.
Yep! Ketchup is another super common addition. We didn't include it because we often find it easy to overpower... just a personal preference thing :) (Oh but remember... ketchup "didn't count" lol)
@@ChineseCookingDemystified Maybe this is my American upbringing speaking, but it's my opinion that traditional Chinese desserts generally suck. The Chinese desserts that don't suck usually (but not always) have southeast Asian or European influences. For example, egg tarts. Something originated in a Portuguese monastery and brought to Hong Kong from Macau by some British guy who replaced the filling with a more English style custard and now is undisputedly Chinese food (and a Chinese dessert that does not suck)
@@dspserpico there’re actually quite a lot of delicious desserts in China. I felt that many of them are local food so you might not be able to try them without visiting the place/know their existence. You definitely can’t find them here in the US either.
Just stumbled on this video randomly. You were already going to get a like because how good the video is, but giving the pupper some of the Beef made me subscribe.
More or less! Cha Chaan Teng have evolved over time, however - for more info, you can check out our Hong Kong Stuffed French Toast & Cantonese Swiss Chicken Wings videos :)
Would you mind covering onion sauce (洋蔥汁) somewhere in the future? Since you'll usually see it alongside black pepper sauce in HK steakhouses and chacaanteng. I usually prefer onion sauce because black pepper sauce in most restaurants are honestly too intense for me and masking the flavour of the beef.
I've been loving both your material recently, I see more channels recommending you every month! I thought it was maybe me when it came to some of Lee Kum Kee's sauces. I love that black pepper sauce recipe, I have access to vegan oyster sauce so I'm definitely making a jar of this to go with some tofu or seitan beef. I bet a dish that savoury would be delightful with a side of freshly stir fried garlic tong choi (which is difficult to just go and grab during lockdown). Tong choi is by far my favourite green, it reminds me of the Korean banchan gosaree namul (despite being completely unrelated from what I can tell).
I've made it several times now, an it's truly one of my all time favorites. I went for the homemade sauce which freezes perfectly. I've had best results with Flat Iron Steak which comes out juicy and tender. I can't seem to find any difference in result between stir frying and deep frying
I had this dish when I was in Sichuan, China. Then again in the Netherlands. But I would love to visit Guangzhou once and taste the authentic Cantonese food there ~~
Totally making this, thanks for sharing! I have to head to my local asian market soon for a restock of some condiments, and since I live in Pittsburgh, the home of Heinz, I will remember this video and be sad that I can't grab me that black pepper sauce!
Frankly, your “mimic” version looked more appetizing than the original, which appeared closer to an oily hash than a pristine stir fry concocted by Chef John. Kudos to you and Steph for creating the latter and for teaching us a very attainable recipe with technique comparisons.Thank you.
Oh man, I'm inspired. I live in Australia and we have easy access to kangaroo fillets which function as a very lean red meat similar to beef loin/flank/round. It's cheaper too. Will be interesting to try this recipe using local game (the Aussie version of venison).
I always thought that black pepper flavor is just a crappy approach of western style steak for even crappier pre-cooked frozen 'steaks'(like those New Orleans chicken wings in China),this video definitely teached me a solid lesson.Great work as always and keep it up!
Hello Steph and Chris! Still kicking here in Canada 🇨🇦 That looks just delicious! And the best thing is you show the bottled variety that can be doctored up to match the real thing and its actually available here in my city!! YAY! I absolutely must try this. Question: what other dishes would you accompany this with? Rice naturally, but is there a salad or anything else to go with it? My hubby would eat all of that and more, lol. So, ideas? Thanks for the help. I'm so, so proud of you both! You've turned your channel into a major player on YT because of the information you give about every dish. You talk about the dish in terms of background, new or old, recent or ancient and now the added joy of two videos! Keep up your phenomenal work. You've made it! 💖 Jenn 🇨🇦 👋 👋 Hello from Canada
@@ChineseCookingDemystified And it's always good to hear from you. Have I said how proud I am of the both of you? Keep doing what you're doing! You're both amazing at this! Jenn 🇨🇦
Made this right away, but with prefried tofu instead of beef. Delicious! Could you recommend another use for this awesome black pepper sauce? Thanks for the recipe!
I made the dish today including the homemade pepper sauce. It was delicious. It can‘t thank you enough for this and for your channel which has been a source of inspiration that never seems to run dry. Still I have a question. What is the purpose of the aluminum foil? Is it to make cleaning up the plates easier which would make sense in a restaurant? I have those bull shaped cast iron plates and I put the dish directly on them without foil. It sizzles even more and looks prettier.
When I was little and had the steak on a hotplate smothered in blackpepper sauce in one of those western restaurants in china, I thought this was a western dish. And then I came to study in Europe and found out it's not the case at all. The pepper sauce I can find in French supermarkets is mayo based, which goes ok with steaks but it's not at all the perpper sauce I remember as a kid! Hongkong cha can ting invention, so that's why.
This looks great...I can almost smell the video! The colour, the use of douchi and the peppers reminds me - do you have a version of black bean chicken? I often make Fuschia Dunlop's version, but I sometimes find it lacking and I wonder if you have a better version.
haha I can understand. It is great to see you are fan of Fuschia Dunlop's cooking book. I hope one day I can publish our own Chinese Sichuan cooking book. What do you mean by the version of Black bean Chicken? any reference? I might can think about it .
@Zhucook Kitchen It just doesn't seem "black bean" enough - the amount of douchi is quite small and much of the umami comes from the soy. I wondered if there was a different way of balancing it more towards the douchi flavour. Also though, I am just interested to see others' variations in cooking it (and most dishes to be honest) so I can take the best/my preferences from each variation.
When I was just out of high school about ten years ago, before my friends and I left our hometown for college, we had a series of international potlucks. One of these was a generic "chinese" night, and I picked some kind of black pepper beef recipe to bring to the party. I had pretty much zero cooking experience, and what I ended up bringing was almost inedibly peppery, completely overdone beef cubes... I figured I had just screwed up the amount of pepper the recipe wanted and ended up using WAY too much but this actually kind of looks like a similar amount, and now I'm wondering if that was a riff on this dish. I say this for just about every video on this channel but I think I should give this one a try.
Been a while since I've heard that one! These days most people in the comments compare my voice to Ben Shapiro's... Richard Dreyfuss is a much more flattering comparison lol
not sure if they have them in the US but in the UK some larger chinese markets have a section on chinese cooking tools, beyond that there's importing from a good supplier or if u own a forge or know someone who does make ur own :D
I normally buy the thai pepper sauce at a local asian market. I live in south Mississippi and was having a lunch meeting and I offered to buy some shrimp and cook with the sauce. In MS they love grits so we had with that..the group leader a born southerner was could not believe how good it came out and went so well with the grits.
Hey, I love all your content! I'm not sure if you guys get different peppercorn variants over in China, but 50g sounds like an INSANE amount of Telicherry peppercorns (I'm based in California and buy most of my spices at an Indian supermarket). For reference, I made the sauce today and had a super peppery (but tasty) result using just 20g, but what I've had at local HK-style restaurants tastes like it used half the amount of black pepper. Do you know about whether y'all just get a different variant of black pepper from what I pick up here? Or is the sauce really supposed to be that peppery? Thanks!
I have same question. A local restaurant I regularly have this dish at is insanely delicious. My version had everyone saying I should have at least halved the amount of pepper 😬
I also thought 50g is too much black paper but I made the paste nevertheless. I am based in West Coast, USA and I used just ordinary black paper I can get in stores. Paste was really hot but I used it diluting with quite lot of water to make gravy for use as topping for crispy chow men and it came out to be ok. I believe it will be too peppery if I use with without water for just stir fry. I think you can just use 25g or so.
Curious they say this “comes from the west” - because in south india we have almost this exact same dish in all the colonial clubs called “beef pepper steak” that’s considered an English dish brought by the English from China - simmered in an onion, garlic, chilli & pepper sauce - main ingredients being pepper & soy sauce.
Interesting to know you have almost the same dish in South India. How about any other similar dish that related to our Chinese food ? Especially Sichuan cuisine ?
Wait, people don't do the pass-through? But it's so easy! Though I am seriously thinking of buying another wok just for deep frying. It's so annoying to take time to dump the oil out. I'll also add: your kung pow chicken is my go-to meal along with the chow mein. They are always delicious, always easy to make. Thank you!
It being a Western and Eastern fusion sounds right with how it is so prevalent in American Chinese restaurants. A dish easy to modify for the tastes of the local clientele.
The problem with the LKK sauces... all of them... is that if you look at the ingredients list they are essentially sugar syrups with different flavourings added. Sugar is frequently, if not always, the second ingredient on the label after water.
We are new to your channel...love the cooking and also the oh so cute doggie! I do remember headaches from msg...is that a "too much" restaurant msg level? I guess it doesn't impact you two? Thanks for the content and also humor! Scratch dog's ears for me..
ohhh can you teach us how to make this black pepper sauce steak with spagetti? I love this stuff, I ate this on the night markets when I lived in Taiwan. So delicious and cheap.
EDIT: IMPORTANT PAPAIN NOTES - we've had a few people make this, a couple reporting some nice successes... but unfortunately also a failure or two. An important thing to understand about papain is that it is basically the nuke in your 'tenderness' arsenal. Two things: (1) do NOT over marinate and (2) even if you scale up the recipe, do NOT scale up the papain. For marination, this isn't western-style "toss your ingredient in the fridge for 5 hours" marination - this is Chinese style "mix your ingredient, cook it soon" style of marination - we usually marinate stuff for anywhere between 5-15 minutes... do not exceed 30. This is my fault, because I didn't articulate that clearly in the recipe. In the past, I'd specify the marination times (usually call for ~10 minutes), but kind of stopped because it started to feel redundant, and the specific marination time usually doesn't really matter anyway (often at restaurants, they marinate literally right before cooking the ingredient). I feel like I should maybe get back to that, because in Western cooking 'marinade' often evokes over-night prep and such.
And second, papain is an enzyme and doesn't scale linearly - if you're using 280g of beef, still use 1/4 tsp papain. Hell, if you're scared... use 1/8 tsp. Stuff's got some power to it.
________________
Hey guys, a few notes:
1. This was the first time I've every tried doing an 'oily pre-fry' side by side with passing through oil, and honestly? I was kind of surprised at how comparable they were. The pass through cooks things a bit more evenly, but texturally they were almost indistinguishable.
2. Also regarding the beef, we were using loin because often in China the beef's a little tougher than what's in the west (and unless you're looking for tenderloin, loin's pretty much a similar price to most other bits) - flank or round would also work well & be more economical. Also as a fun random aside, the specific beef that we were using in the video was actually yak meat. We have a vendor at our market that insists that the quality of the meat is better than some of the other beef you get here in the PRD, and I don't disagree.
3. As I've said in the past, when it comes to meat marinades... papain is basically the nuke in your "how can I make this more tender?" arsenal. Other candidates are (1) sodium carbonate (can be manufactured at home by baking baking soda for ~1 hr at ~150C) and (2) baking soda. Unlike pork, or even chicken - beef craves tenderizing agents.
4. The aluminum foil here is basically to avoid splatter/avoid having to clean up a sticky, saucy mess of a hotplate. We filmed a version without the aluminum foil for thumbnail/money shot purposes (which you can see in the very beginning of the video), and if you look closely, it's just... chaos. Going direct on a hotplate works fine if you're doing something dryer like cumin lamb, but if you're doing something saucy, the aluminum foil is a god send. Makes everything so, SO much easier to clean up. We did the aluminum foil trick in the video at first just to mimic the restaurant, but honestly? For a home cook I feel like it's *the* way to serve a hotplate, and we're going to be going that route from now on.
5. I know we've kind of been uploading a number of videos recently - it's basically because I consider stuff like the Q&A, the Yacai taste test, and the upcoming 4/1 video 'extra content' in my head. (Speaking of which, we'll be coming back with a proper recipe video - Cantonese Cha Chaan Teng Macaroni Soup - the Sunday after 4/1, together with Guizhou Rice Tofu the following week).
Ni Hao it's Uncle Neil
1. I've been doing a few (non-Chinese dishes for a while now where I briefly fry thin sliced beef in oil for such a brief period of time, but the flavours and textures really work for me.
4. I often shun any process that involves "wasting" foil, plastic wrap etc.
But using foil to simplify the cooking and clean up has become something that I don't worry about so much.
I figure that overall, I recycle so much of it anyway, and I use less energy and water by using the foil that goes into my recycling.
I love the idea of this recipe, another gem to try in the future from you both, thank you :)
So is Yak indistinguishable from beef, or are you able to notice a difference in taste?
Do you have any recommendations on storing oil use for passing through. Can you reuse it and how long can you keep it?
You can buy sodium carbonate in western grocery stores, it's just sold in the laundry aisle as "washing soda".
It's hilarious that Heinz makes the best store-bought of this stuff
heinz makes the best tomato and mushroom ketchup, no reason why they cant be. still laughed, though.
I know, right? I was at the wholesale market comparing different brands, and more than one vendor pushing me towards Heinz. I thought to myself "eh, maybe they're just thinking that the foreigner would prefer the foreign brand or something". Take four different brands home and, lo and behold, Heinz was heads-and-shoulders above the rest.
What really cracked me up though was double-checking whether its available in the West... because of *course* the American brand that actually makes the best manufactured version of the sauce doesn't sell it in America. Obviously, haha.
In any event, LKK with those fixes does work beautifully. But man, LKK's product line is variable as all hell. How the company the produces the best Char Siu sauce and Hoisin sauce can be so off the mark with their black pepper sauce is a head scratcher to me.
@@Alphonselle why isn't this in the U.S?
@@MSDarkspyro My best estimates: Because local folks in USA won't buy Better Heinz for, say, 30% more expensive prices compared with their competitor. However, foreigner folks are willing to buy Better Heinz, even _after_ they got their price jacked to 50% more compared to normal price, because, hey, good stuff.
Well... ketchup (茄汁) itself has southern Chinese origins, and Heinz make pretty much the best ketchup...
These videos have taught me that the quality of a sauce is inversely proportional to its availability in the west regardless of brand
"It probably came from Hong Kong."
Yep, that seems about right for that East vs. West confusion.
You guys constantly give me everything I'm looking for in a Chinese cooking channel, plus your both very charming, which frankly is just the cherry on top. Don't ever stop
Papain is sold in the United States labeled as “meat tenderizer.” Some brands, such as Badia, contain the enzyme bromelain rather than papain. Anthony’s brand contains papain. The marinating period must be brief, however, as the enzymes quickly digest the meat and make it unpalatably mushy.
Flat Iron Steak with "Black Pepper Sauce" is the dish I had when I first went to a "Western food restaurant" in China as a child;
Ironically, Black Pepper Beef now is my favorite in Panda Express and I believe it's their most authentic "Chinese dish"
Lmao true though i do love black pepper steak and orange chicken mix.
your content is pure gold. I adore how you add the different approaches to sauces, possibilities for substitutions, etc..
I went to Hong Kong 10 years ago. I spend the last year looking on how to remake this taste. I have googled, searched on TH-cam, etc. And this is the first place where I find it.
I have made a fried noodles food truck. And I will use this recipe for it!
I will change the beef with minced meat, and with flat rice noodles.
Thank you so much for sharing this.
Best channel on TH-cam. Much love from Canada.
indeed
That’s a pretty bold claim but I can’t say I disagree....
wow i remember when you guys just started out and had
😁 I remember too. Less than 2k when I found them. I think I was one of the first to support them on Patreon too.
I'm old(ish) and watching them grow was like watching my own kids succeed. I'm so proud of them. A LOT of hard work goes in to every video. And they're so relatable. The information they give about every dish is way above and beyond what most creators go into.
Jenn 🇨🇦
@@rhijulbec1 agreed. The depth of their research is remarkable. As a chef myself, it's one of the only non chef cooking TH-cam channel I subscribe to
@@afraidcomet
I'm old(ish), 😁 and my mum was a professional cook (she refused to be called a chef, though she totally was) so I learned at her elbow and have been cooking for 60 years! I'm a really, really good cook, but I'm no chef by any means. I don't have the "vision" chefs do. Probably like you do. Like mum could make something from almost nothing. She was able to visualize the meal. She put flavours together you'd think wouldn't work. But her specialty was pie. My gawd that woman could make pies! At one point she made 40 pies/day and all were sold out every day. If she moved from one restaurant to another all of her devotees moved too. She was so amazing. I chose another path and became a nurse, but I've always loved cooking. If you don't mind a couple questions ~don't answer if you don't want to. I understand.
But that said~Do you have dishes that you enjoy making more than others? What's your favourite dish? What ethnicity of cooking do you like most? Mine is Greek food. I went to Greece years ago and absolutely fell in love with it.
I really love making hearty winter foods. I get what I call "broody" in the fall and love making stews, chilies ~ all the comfort foods. I'm not a huge baker though. Not sure why. Except ~ and this is no lie~I baked a pie crust once and while removing it from the oven I dropped it. IT DID NOT BREAK! It was like a hockey puck. Hubby still tells that story 😁. So I decided unlike mum, pies were not my forte!
These two are so very dedicated to being informative and their formula works so well. And I've always loved Steph's outros. I think they've got the formula perfected.
I'm incredibly envious of you btw. A chef can be so creative and whip up a feast with a few ingredients. I wish you great success.
EDIT: may I ask what YT channels you'd recommend for someone who's an experienced cook? Thanks for a reply.
Jenn 🇨🇦 👋 👋 Hello from Canada
@@rhijulbec1 I just wanted to say that I really loved your story
@@rhijulbec1 To be fair, chef doesn't mean cook, it means "chief." The chef is the head of the kitchen (or kitchens), which is also why some chefs historically haven't done much cooking themselves.
I love the precise timing instructions „until it starts to smell incredible“...
I remember the black pepper beef I used to get when I lived in Hong Kong was absolutely delicious 🤤. That peppery sweet yet a bit sour mix with that tender beef (which was even better if you let it stay wrapped on your table for five minutes as you eagerly wait lol) was the perfect accompaniment to multiple beers after work. Great video guys
Papain gets sold in most US supermarkets as "Meat Tenderizer". Common brands are Adolph's, McCormick, and Badia.
Those all use bromelain, not papain. Similar, but different.
Mad respect for you guys. I love the origins of the recipes and everything else about this channel
Hi guys. Love your posts. A comment I might about Velvet Meat you mentioned in a previous post. Starch works, cooking to create that slippery mouth-feel that mimics the consistency of tender, juicy meat. The problem however is when you add it to any liquid i.e. sauce as the starch cloak simply floats off into the sauce and you loose the velvet texture. A cantonese chef taught me his family secret (yes! unbelievable! actually via his wife). He adds a modicum of eggwhite to the cornstarch/potato flour in the marinade. In the initial shallow or deep fry of the meat the albumen stabilised the starch, effectively glueing it to the meat and the result is a super-velvety coating. It's hard to have fresh eggwhite to hand so I used powdered egg white, about half the volume of starch. Try it.
Love your channel and how you guys get explain professional and historical the details of the dishes thanks
Your channels content is absolute top tier! I hope you guys are having fun and getting paid!
"Good enough for government work" Brilliant hahah!!
Definitely a popular Chinese dish in the US too given the mostly "western" vegetables cooked with it.
haha the same in Europe as well
BTW thank you for giving us the links for the harder to find ingredients it really helps alot.
“Talk to someone from the west they’ll probably tell you it’s chinese”
“Talk to someone Chinese and they’ll tell you it’s from the west”
“It’s probably from Hong Kong”
You said the same thing three times.
Black pepper sauce is my favorite sauce! I was more than excited to see this video come up.
I have to say that I both love and hate you for guilting me for using the pass through method for stir fries. It’s a total game changer, even though the extra step kind of annoys me as it just complicated the cooking order a little bit. Once again, great recipe!
This channel is a gem, thank you for your dedication and consistent quality it shows!
This looks incredibly delicious. Can't wait to make it for my family. Thank you so much for your amazing videos.
As one who teaches YT creators, and who's been doing post-production for decades, I want to congratulate you on your production values, camera work, and overall editing. PLUS I love the subject. Five stars, you! Maybe a little color enhancing work, but otherwise.. great job.
Thanks for sharing the recipe! This is my favorite black pepper sauce! I especially love 黑椒牛仔骨 Black Pepper Short Ribs from Dim Sum restaurants! So savory and tender..
Appreciating the authenticity. An excellent resource without bullshit.
Thank you.
even without the papain powder, the rest of the marinade does pretty good work. my family never uses the papain powder, and it still comes out pretty good
I improvised with the ingredients i had. I did the usual marination with the beef, but for the sauce I used 1tbsp Yeo's black bean sauce, with 1 tsp pearl river black bean with oil and 1 tbsp ground black peppercorns, msg. OMG was better than the best Sizzling beef I have ever had. Sake makes a big difference too. AMAZING.
Hello, I just wanted to say that you and your partner do an amazing job! I have a 'Chinese Cooking' created TH-cam folder with recipies and your channel make up quite a few. I've become the cook for our family and I pride myself on finding authentic versions of Chinese dishes. Thank you for your content!
I finally made the black pepper beef but used the whole steak method and used your marinade technique and Heinz black pepper sauce. This is incredible. I used a prime grade tenderloin cut for the steak from Costco. Amazing. Thanks so much for your channel.
I love your breakdown of recipes, but a super close second is your outro music. That tune is fire!!
Last week there was a sales action of tenderloin in our near by super market. All the other stuff I have in the pantry.
Hey, now I know what to cook.
Thanky a lot! Greetings from Germany.
As a dog lover, I always chuckle at the dog trying to get attention at the end of the video
I love seeing how different parts of the world use similar cooking styles
Watching this video, and coming from a Latino background, all I could think was "Chinese Fajitas"
Definitely giving this a try soon!
I'd be curious to see the ingredients listed on the Heinz version.
Looks really good, me and my dad hates woking beef cuz it burns like hell but we'll give it a go with that prep!
Yumm - just made this & came out beautifully! Skipped the hotplate part and served on rice. Probably a sacrilege but this is a keeper. Thx for the great channel, learned so much from you guys!!
Oh and yes I made the sauce from scratch. Super easy, very tasty, also a good gift to bring for friends.
Surprised you're struggling to convince people to do a pass through oil! It's a really useful technique. It's given me amazing results every time and I just reuse some of the oil for the same dish later on and it ends up being fine.
Black pepper sauce has to be from Hong Kong and influenced by western ingredients. The version of the sauce my mom taught me uses regular tomato ketchup.
Take that, person who asked the question about the lack of non-Chinese of ingredients and Chinese ethnocentrism.
Yep! Ketchup is another super common addition. We didn't include it because we often find it easy to overpower... just a personal preference thing :)
(Oh but remember... ketchup "didn't count" lol)
@@ChineseCookingDemystified Maybe this is my American upbringing speaking, but it's my opinion that traditional Chinese desserts generally suck. The Chinese desserts that don't suck usually (but not always) have southeast Asian or European influences.
For example, egg tarts. Something originated in a Portuguese monastery and brought to Hong Kong from Macau by some British guy who replaced the filling with a more English style custard and now is undisputedly Chinese food (and a Chinese dessert that does not suck)
@@dspserpico there’re actually quite a lot of delicious desserts in China. I felt that many of them are local food so you might not be able to try them without visiting the place/know their existence. You definitely can’t find them here in the US either.
北支浪，汕头甜品多的你都不知道
Just stumbled on this video randomly. You were already going to get a like because how good the video is, but giving the pupper some of the Beef made me subscribe.
Looks drool worthy... Have to try it soon. Will make the sauce from scratch.
I'm always happy to see a new upload! :D
Ah yes. Black pepper beef. The default choice whenever I have to cook beef. That or beef rendang for tougher cuts
For short rib Yaki Udon Stir fry is absolutely perfect
I am so glad I found you guys and this channel 🤗
Cha Caan Teng is the type of place where the restaurant scenes happen in A Mood for Love , right? That steak looks pretty much like what they eat.
More or less! Cha Chaan Teng have evolved over time, however - for more info, you can check out our Hong Kong Stuffed French Toast & Cantonese Swiss Chicken Wings videos :)
Its just literally translated as a hall (Teng) for dining (Chan) and tea (Cha). Basically just a restaurant/cafe that is Hong Kong styled
Would you mind covering onion sauce (洋蔥汁) somewhere in the future? Since you'll usually see it alongside black pepper sauce in HK steakhouses and chacaanteng. I usually prefer onion sauce because black pepper sauce in most restaurants are honestly too intense for me and masking the flavour of the beef.
I've been loving both your material recently, I see more channels recommending you every month! I thought it was maybe me when it came to some of Lee Kum Kee's sauces. I love that black pepper sauce recipe, I have access to vegan oyster sauce so I'm definitely making a jar of this to go with some tofu or seitan beef. I bet a dish that savoury would be delightful with a side of freshly stir fried garlic tong choi (which is difficult to just go and grab during lockdown). Tong choi is by far my favourite green, it reminds me of the Korean banchan gosaree namul (despite being completely unrelated from what I can tell).
I've made it several times now, an it's truly one of my all time favorites. I went for the homemade sauce which freezes perfectly. I've had best results with Flat Iron Steak which comes out juicy and tender. I can't seem to find any difference in result between stir frying and deep frying
Papain, or papaya enzyme, is actually pretty easy to find in the States.
Wow seriously looks so good the beef the sauce and everything. So mouthwatering indeed😋😋😋
Awesome every time. Thank you Steph & Chris :)
I'm about to make this dish but quick question, how much TBSP of sauce in total to use for 150-200g beef portion as shown in this video
why are you Chinese cooking TH-camr version of nilered
and why do I absolutely love it
I made the homemade sauce. It took a surprising amount of work, but man was it worth it.
Will definetly try this out! Awesome Video :)
I had this dish when I was in Sichuan, China. Then again in the Netherlands. But I would love to visit Guangzhou once and taste the authentic Cantonese food there ~~
Yum.....straight to the RECIPE file. Thanks.
Totally making this, thanks for sharing! I have to head to my local asian market soon for a restock of some condiments, and since I live in Pittsburgh, the home of Heinz, I will remember this video and be sad that I can't grab me that black pepper sauce!
Frankly, your “mimic” version looked more appetizing than the original, which appeared closer to an oily hash than a pristine stir fry concocted by Chef John. Kudos to you and Steph for creating the latter and for teaching us a very attainable recipe with technique comparisons.Thank you.
I was looking for a recipe for this just yesterday and was disappointed you didn't have one XD
Black pepper beef after a night out drinking is 🔥
Oh man, I'm inspired. I live in Australia and we have easy access to kangaroo fillets which function as a very lean red meat similar to beef loin/flank/round. It's cheaper too. Will be interesting to try this recipe using local game (the Aussie version of venison).
Did you end up trying the roo version?
I know this is two years old now, but I have the Heinz black pepper sauce at one of my local Asian markets in Florida.
This is the best recipe so far. I also added some eggwhite before passing through oil
Love your work, people!
ahhhh i've been missing this sauce ty for this video
Now I'm craving this. Gonna have to make it tonight.
love this. Gonna make it this weekend.
Do your neighbors ever come sniffing around your door looking to try a bite? I dont think I could help myself with all the delicious things you make!
I always thought that black pepper flavor is just a crappy approach of western style steak for even crappier pre-cooked frozen 'steaks'(like those New Orleans chicken wings in China),this video definitely teached me a solid lesson.Great work as always and keep it up!
Hello Steph and Chris! Still kicking here in Canada 🇨🇦
That looks just delicious! And the best thing is you show the bottled variety that can be doctored up to match the real thing and its actually available here in my city!! YAY! I absolutely must try this.
Question: what other dishes would you accompany this with? Rice naturally, but is there a salad or anything else to go with it? My hubby would eat all of that and more, lol. So, ideas?
Thanks for the help. I'm so, so proud of you both! You've turned your channel into a major player on YT because of the information you give about every dish. You talk about the dish in terms of background, new or old, recent or ancient and now the added joy of two videos!
Keep up your phenomenal work. You've made it! 💖
Jenn 🇨🇦 👋 👋 Hello from Canada
Always good to hear from you Jenn! For two people this, some white rice, and a simple stir fried vegetable (broccoli + garlic?) would be perfect :)
@@ChineseCookingDemystified
And it's always good to hear from you.
Have I said how proud I am of the both of you? Keep doing what you're doing! You're both amazing at this!
Jenn 🇨🇦
Made this right away, but with prefried tofu instead of beef. Delicious! Could you recommend another use for this awesome black pepper sauce?
Thanks for the recipe!
Beyond a stir fry dish or a side sauce to a steak there's not much more main stream it's used for
you guys are awesome.... love these videos
I love your channel!
I made the dish today including the homemade pepper sauce. It was delicious. It can‘t thank you enough for this and for your channel which has been a source of inspiration that never seems to run dry. Still I have a question. What is the purpose of the aluminum foil? Is it to make cleaning up the plates easier which would make sense in a restaurant? I have those bull shaped cast iron plates and I put the dish directly on them without foil. It sizzles even more and looks prettier.
When I was little and had the steak on a hotplate smothered in blackpepper sauce in one of those western restaurants in china, I thought this was a western dish. And then I came to study in Europe and found out it's not the case at all. The pepper sauce I can find in French supermarkets is mayo based, which goes ok with steaks but it's not at all the perpper sauce I remember as a kid! Hongkong cha can ting invention, so that's why.
Thanks for the recipe! This looks amazing!
How long do you think the homemade black pepper sauce can last on the fridge?
This looks great...I can almost smell the video!
The colour, the use of douchi and the peppers reminds me - do you have a version of black bean chicken? I often make Fuschia Dunlop's version, but I sometimes find it lacking and I wonder if you have a better version.
haha I can understand. It is great to see you are fan of Fuschia Dunlop's cooking book. I hope one day I can publish our own Chinese Sichuan cooking book. What do you mean by the version of Black bean Chicken? any reference? I might can think about it .
@Zhucook Kitchen It just doesn't seem "black bean" enough - the amount of douchi is quite small and much of the umami comes from the soy. I wondered if there was a different way of balancing it more towards the douchi flavour.
Also though, I am just interested to see others' variations in cooking it (and most dishes to be honest) so I can take the best/my preferences from each variation.
@@Anesthesia069 ok I see I will look it up later when I have time~~
I've been looking forever for a recipe to restaurant grade black pepper sauce. I always gotta have my Chicken Steak with Black Pepper Sauce
When I was just out of high school about ten years ago, before my friends and I left our hometown for college, we had a series of international potlucks. One of these was a generic "chinese" night, and I picked some kind of black pepper beef recipe to bring to the party. I had pretty much zero cooking experience, and what I ended up bringing was almost inedibly peppery, completely overdone beef cubes... I figured I had just screwed up the amount of pepper the recipe wanted and ended up using WAY too much but this actually kind of looks like a similar amount, and now I'm wondering if that was a riff on this dish. I say this for just about every video on this channel but I think I should give this one a try.
how did you get richard dreyfuss to narrate your video?
Been a while since I've heard that one! These days most people in the comments compare my voice to Ben Shapiro's... Richard Dreyfuss is a much more flattering comparison lol
Any idea where to acquire those chinese (cast iron?) hot plates in the US?
Can't wait to try this, ordering the ingredients for the homebrew sauce....
not sure if they have them in the US but in the UK some larger chinese markets have a section on chinese cooking tools, beyond that there's importing from a good supplier or if u own a forge or know someone who does make ur own :D
I normally buy the thai pepper sauce at a local asian market. I live in south Mississippi and was having a lunch meeting and I offered to buy some shrimp and cook with the sauce. In MS they love grits so we had with that..the group leader a born southerner was could not believe how good it came out and went so well with the grits.
Hey, I love all your content! I'm not sure if you guys get different peppercorn variants over in China, but 50g sounds like an INSANE amount of Telicherry peppercorns (I'm based in California and buy most of my spices at an Indian supermarket). For reference, I made the sauce today and had a super peppery (but tasty) result using just 20g, but what I've had at local HK-style restaurants tastes like it used half the amount of black pepper. Do you know about whether y'all just get a different variant of black pepper from what I pick up here? Or is the sauce really supposed to be that peppery? Thanks!
I have same question. A local restaurant I regularly have this dish at is insanely delicious. My version had everyone saying I should have at least halved the amount of pepper 😬
I also thought 50g is too much black paper but I made the paste nevertheless. I am based in West Coast, USA and I used just ordinary black paper I can get in stores. Paste was really hot but I used it diluting with quite lot of water to make gravy for use as topping for crispy chow men and it came out to be ok. I believe it will be too peppery if I use with without water for just stir fry. I think you can just use 25g or so.
great video, makes me hungry and inspired to learn more about chinese cooking
Curious they say this “comes from the west” - because in south india we have almost this exact same dish in all the colonial clubs called “beef pepper steak” that’s considered an English dish brought by the English from China - simmered in an onion, garlic, chilli & pepper sauce - main ingredients being pepper & soy sauce.
Interesting to know you have almost the same dish in South India. How about any other similar dish that related to our Chinese food ? Especially Sichuan cuisine ?
Wait, people don't do the pass-through? But it's so easy! Though I am seriously thinking of buying another wok just for deep frying. It's so annoying to take time to dump the oil out.
I'll also add: your kung pow chicken is my go-to meal along with the chow mein. They are always delicious, always easy to make. Thank you!
Just made this ! Mind blown ! Thank you guys
It being a Western and Eastern fusion sounds right with how it is so prevalent in American Chinese restaurants. A dish easy to modify for the tastes of the local clientele.
definitely , maybe I will try to create something that related to Sichuan Cuisine as well
@@zhucookkitchen5172 I enjoy the fusion as it allows to taste flavors without having to have an extensive pantry to make the dishes.
@@davidfence6939 😉😉😉😉good to hear about it
You guys are spoiling us. Thanks so much!
always good to be spoiled , right?
@@zhucookkitchen5172 I appreciate it, I must say hahaha
The problem with the LKK sauces... all of them... is that if you look at the ingredients list they are essentially sugar syrups with different flavourings added. Sugar is frequently, if not always, the second ingredient on the label after water.
Thanks very much this recipe was absolutely delicious me and my grandmother really enjoyed it
Humm, isn't that like, America 's version of Pepper stake? Thanks for the information. I'll give it try.
We are new to your channel...love the cooking and also the oh so cute doggie! I do remember headaches from msg...is that a "too much" restaurant msg level? I guess it doesn't impact you two?
Thanks for the content and also humor! Scratch dog's ears for me..
ohhh can you teach us how to make this black pepper sauce steak with spagetti? I love this stuff, I ate this on the night markets when I lived in Taiwan. So delicious and cheap.
Great video, going to give this a try at home! One question, the saucepan you used, is that something available in the US?
Any thoughts on subbing Japanese miso for Douchi? Do they have similar flavor profiles or is Douchi the only way?
Might be a good sub, but the few times I had douchi it's more dark and heavy than miso.
I wouldn't sub, the flavors are pretty different. Also, douchi is pretty cheap and keeps for months without a refrigerator once opened.