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Lucas Sin's Black Pepper Beef
Lucas Sin
Lucas Sin
Lucas Sin grew up in Hong Kong and moved to the US to study Cognitive Science at Yale. He launched underground restaurants while he was a student and was swept up by the world of food, cooking in Japan and working at Modernist Cuisine in Seattle. He owns Junzi Kitchen and Nice Day in New York and Connecticut. “Food is a great lens through which to see the world,” says Lucas. “It starts conversations.”
I love how this dish speaks to the Westernisation of Cantonese cooking. The black pepper sauce is made from a mix of peppercorns, fermented black beans and soy sauce and the stir-fry is made with cubes of wagyu, rather than the usual beef strips.
I use striploin but ribeye would work great too. The meat is seared and then tossed with the sauce, stir-fried peppers and onions.
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Ingredients
Black Pepper Sauce
Black Pepper Sauce
40g whole black peppercorns
10g whole white peppercorns
6g Sichuan peppercorns
Vegetable oil, for cooking
1 shallot, chopped
4 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped
15g Chinese fermented black beans, soaked and chopped
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp abalone sauce
1 tbsp Chinese rice wine (mijiu)
3/4 cup water
1/2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp MSG
Black Pepper Beef
Black Pepper Beef
12 oz Westholme wagyu striploin, cut into 2cm (1 in) cubes)
1/2 tbsp Chinese rice wine (mijiu)
1/2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp light soy sauce
1 tsp potato starch (or cornstarch)
1/2 red onion, sliced lengthwise 1cm (1/2 in)
1/4 leek or spring (Welsh) onion, sliced thinly 1/2cm (1/4 in)
1/2 red capsicum (bell pepper), cut in 1cm (1/2 in) strips
1/2 green capsicum (bell pepper), cut in 1cm (1/2 in) strips
To Serve
To Serve
White rice
Method
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Black Pepper Sauce
Combine black, white, and Sichuan peppercorns in a spice grinder or a mortar. Grind until medium coarse and set aside.
Place skillet with oil over medium heat. Cook shallots and garlic until aromatic, about 30 seconds. Add fermented black beans and peppercorns (add all for a very peppery sauce, less if you prefer) and continue to cook until fragrant. Add the rest of the ingredients and cook over a low flame until the flavours have incorporated and reduced to a thin paste that coats the back of your spoon, about 5-10 minutes. Set aside.
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Black Pepper Beef
Mix the cubed wagyu with the rice wine, sugar, soy and starch. Let sit for at least 15 minutes and up to 1 day.
Place cast iron pan with oil over high heat. Heat until smoking then sear cubes of striploin until medium-rare, about 7 minutes. Set aside and let cool.
Preheat cast iron sizzler plate.
For the stir-fry, in a skillet or a wok, heat oil over high heat. When smoking, add sliced onions, leeks, and capsicum (bell peppers). Continually stir-fry until the edges pick up a little bit of colour but the vegetables have not yet begun to wilt. Add the cubed steak. Toss for about 1 minute until combined and place the stir-fry onto the sizzler plate.
To serve, pour black pepper sauce over the stir-fry until the sauce steams and sizzles. Eat warm with white rice.
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"I love how this dish speaks to the Westernisation of Cantonese cooking."
