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Sliced beef and bright green broccoli florets in a glossy dark brown sauce
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Main Chinese restaurant-style Chinese Dairy-free Nut-free

Beef with Broccoli

The most ordered dish on any Chinese menu in North America, velveted beef and broccoli in a glossy brown sauce built on oyster and dark soy. The broccoli is blanched separately and shocked rather than cooked in the pan, which keeps it emphatically green and stops it releasing water into the sauce, and the beef is seared in a single layer and pulled out early so it never toughens.

Prep25 min
Cook10 min
Rest30 min
Servings2
Cook mode

Adapted from RecipeTin Eats' takeout-style beef and broccoli, keeping her extra-saucy ratio and the pinch of five spice in the brown sauce.

Ingredients

Written for a 30 cm pan

Units
Temperature
Servings
2

Beef and marinade

  • 360 g flank or rump steak, sliced thinly against the grain
  • 15 ml water
  • 1 g bicarbonate of soda, tenderiser; rinse off after 30 minutes
  • 8 g cornflour
  • 10 ml light soy sauce

Brown sauce

  • 250 ml water or beef stock
  • 22 ml oyster sauce
  • 22 ml light soy sauce
  • 15 ml dark soy sauce
  • 15 ml Shaoxing wine
  • 16 g cornflour
  • 6 g sugar
  • 1 g Chinese five spice powder, a pinch only, it disappears into the background
  • 1 g ground white pepper

Stir-fry

  • 600 g broccoli, cut into florets, stems peeled and sliced
  • 30 ml neutral oil
  • 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 8 g fresh ginger, finely chopped

Dietary labels are a guide, not a guarantee. If you have an allergy, read the ingredients yourself.

Method

  1. Tenderise the beef. Mix the slices with the water and bicarbonate of soda, leave 30 minutes, then rinse thoroughly and pat dry. Toss with the cornflour and soy sauce.
  2. Blanch the broccoli and shock it. Boil the florets 90 seconds, then drop them straight into iced water. Drain very well. Blanching separately is what keeps them green and firm, and it stops them steaming water into the sauce later.
  3. Mix the sauce in a jug, cornflour last, and stir again before use.
  4. Sear the beef and remove it. Very hot wok, half the oil, beef in one layer, undisturbed 60 to 90 seconds until browned, then toss briefly and remove while slightly underdone.
  5. Fry the aromatics. Rest of the oil, then garlic and ginger for 20 seconds until fragrant but not coloured.
  6. Sauce and thicken. Pour in the stirred sauce and bring to a boil, stirring, until it turns glossy and thick enough to coat a spoon, about 1 minute.
  7. Return everything. Add the beef and broccoli, toss for 30 seconds just to heat through and coat, and serve immediately with rice.

Variations

Same sauce, same method, swapping the vegetable.

  • Beef with vegetables. Replace the broccoli with 600 g of mixed vegetables, carrot, celery, onion, peppers and mushrooms, cooked hardest first. No blanching needed for these.
  • Beef with baby corn and mushrooms. 200 g baby corn, halved lengthwise, and 250 g sliced mushrooms browned dry first, plus a handful of snow peas.
  • Chicken with broccoli. 400 g sliced chicken thigh, velveted the same way but without the bicarbonate of soda, which chicken does not need.
  • Beef with green beans. 400 g green beans blanched 2 minutes. For the properly blistered restaurant version see chicken or beef green beans.

Notes

  • Blanch and shock the broccoli, always. Broccoli cooked in the wok releases water, dilutes the sauce and turns olive drab. Ninety seconds in boiling water and a plunge into ice is the whole trick.
  • This sauce is the house brown sauce and it is worth knowing on its own. It is the base under a good half of the menu, and the recipes for black bean and Szechuan versions are variations on the same idea.
  • A pinch of five spice is the secret ingredient in a lot of restaurant brown sauce. More than a pinch and it tastes of liquorice.
  • The bicarbonate of soda must be rinsed off. Thirty minutes, then rinse properly.

Ingredient substitutions

  • Oyster sauce substitutes with vegetarian mushroom oyster-style sauce for a slightly lighter result.
  • Dark soy sauce provides the colour. Without it the sauce is beige; use extra light soy and a teaspoon of molasses if you must.
  • Shaoxing wine substitutes with dry sherry, or stock plus a splash of rice vinegar.

Sources consulted

Good with

Sources consulted

From Christoph Mayer

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