Chu Hou Brisket (柱侯牛腩)

If you ever get beef brisket noodle in the food court or restaurant, chances are they would have used this type of sauce for the noodle.

I remember the first time I made this, I assumed that all I needed was the 柱侯 sauce. So that's all I added to a pot of water and boiled my brisket in it. It wasn't bad but it wasn't the taste I was looking for either. After further tasting, testing and research, I realize what some of the other items are that they add to the soup to make the taste stand out.

Here's the version that I make when I make stew brisket with this flavour. My hubby liked it and thought it tastes like the restaurants so I was happy.
It's very simple to make because all you need to do is throw everything into a pot and let it cook together. I like to leave my brisket over night to let the flavour really meld together.

Chu Hou Brisket (柱侯牛腩)

Ingredients

• 1kg Beef brisket
• 1 tbsp Garlic
• 2 Green onion
• 3 Slices of ginger
• 3 Star anise
• 3 Bay leaves
• 1/4 tsp Cinnamon
• Salt to taste
• 2 tbsp Chu Hou Sauce
• Small piece of Rock sugar
• 2L Water
• 2 small Daikon

Directions

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil.
2. While you're waiting for the water to boil, cut the Beef brisket into 1 inch thick slices.
3. Throw the brisket into the boiling water and cook it for 5 mins after it comes back up to a boil. This will help you wash and remove impurities so you have a better soup base at the end of cooking.
4. Strain the brisket. Wash the brisket and the pot so you can reuse it to cook the brisket.
5. Rinse the star anise and bay leaves.
6. Chop up the green onion into long strips and slice the ginger.
7. Add a little bit of oil to the bottom of the pot and cook the garlic, green onion and ginger so you can smell the flavours.
8. Add the brisket and 2L of water.
9. Throw in the star anise, bay leaves, cinnamon, Chu Hou Sauce and the piece of rock sugar.
10. Bring it to a boil then turn the heat down to simmer. 
11. Wash and peel the daikon. Cut into 1 inch slices.
12. About an hour into the cooking, skim fat and then add the daikon so the daikon doesn't absorb too much fat.
13. Depending on what type of brisket you have and if there are tendons, total cook time can range from 2 to 4 hours. Check periodically for readiness by poking a chopstick into the brisket. 
14. Optional: Once it's done, you can thicken the sauce by adding corn starch or flour or both. I thicken the sauce for rice dish but leave it alone for soup noodle dish. 

Tip: Use a pot that retains heat or use a thermal vacuum cooker.  This will lower electricity use when cooking. 

For pots that retain heat very well. Bring pot to a boil for 15 mins then turn off heat for 15 mins. Repeat throughout the cooking time.

For thermal vacuum cooker, cook brisket for 30 mins then put the pot in the pot holder for 3-4 hours or overnight. 

Korean BBQ Sauce

I love KBBQ ribs but it's very expensive to order when you're at the restaurant. So I asked my Korean friend how he makes his KBBQ ribs.
And his response was, it's simple, just throw in everything, blend and marinate it overnight and then cook it.
He was able to give me a list of all the ingredients but he was not able to give me the amounts since he never measures it.
I tried the same and I found that generally, the taste is very similar as long as I don't go overboard on any one of the ingredients (ie half a finger of ginger, too much soy sauce etc).
So I took the time to measure and test the recipe and tested it on my husband until he thought it matches fairly well.

Another note I wanted to make up front is what I used for the sweetener.
He uses only honey, it has a unique flavour and it thickens the sauce!
Honey will make the sauce nice and thick and clingy which makes it easier to use to marinate. But at the same time, honey can be very expensive depending on you live. So my recipe below uses a bit of brown sugar to replace some of the honey but you can always swap it out for pure honey.

So this post will cover the marinate itself. You can make a big batch and keep it in the fridge or freeze it for future use or just make it as you need.

Korean BBQ Sauce

Prep Time: <5 mins Makes enough to cover about 500g of ribs pending on the box/bag you're using for marinating

Ingredients

• 40g Soy Sauce
• 5g Ginger
• 10g Garlic
• 2 Green Onion
• 20g Honey
• 10g Brown Sugar
• Juice from Half a Lemon
• 10g Vinegar
• 40g Water

Directions

1. Measure and put all the ingredients into a blender and blend
2. Let the foam settle, after 10 mins or so, stir the foam and bits into the sauce if it doesn't mix in on it's own
3. Use right away or save in fridge or freezer. Shelf life is shorter then what you buy because there's no preservatives

Simple right? :)

Enjoy!