Slow Cooker Hakka Chinese Braised Beef Brisket with Daikon and Tendon

Growing up in Jamaica in a multicultural setting, I had friends from pretty much every corner of the globe, and became accustomed to eating a variety of ethnic foods, Lebanese, Chinese, Indian, English, and of course, Jamaican. As a child, I grew up eating parts of animals that many Americans would find very strange, and probably would not touch with a 10 foot pole. The term “Offal” is the name for those animal parts (OK, not an appetizing name), and included, tripe, “cow foot”, “cow tongue”, pigs trotters, pigs tails etc. These were the parts of the animals that the colonial plantation owners would give to the slaves to eat. Naturally, the slaves came up with some ingenious ways to use these, so in the long run, it was the owner's loss! Eating “Offal” is not only “slave food” but is something that people in many other cultures do, and each culture makes use of these animal parts in their own unique way. I imagine that the closest thing to that in the United States would be eating “Road Kill”.

Because my best friend as a child was of Hakka Chinese origin, the flavors of Hakka cooking are what I know best, and they remain, for me, my favorite type of Chinese cuisine. This is a dish that is pure Hakka “Comfort Food”, and on a cold winter night, is just perfect for me. It takes me back to sitting around the table with my “Hakka Family”, and just enjoying the good food. The gelatinous nature of the cooked tendon, contrasts nicely with the firmness of the brisket cubes and the vegetables. Like many other Hakka dishes, this requires you to have everything "in place" before starting to cook. This is a slow cooker version of the dish but you could also do it on the stove top. I like to use a slow cooker because you really don’t have to monitor it too closely. 

Ingredients

2 lb beef brisket

1 lb beef tendon

4 cups water

2 inch piece of ginger root, peeled and sliced lengthwise (I got 4 slices)

2 tablespoons rock sugar, thumb-sized

1 large carrot, cut into large pieces

1 large daikon, cut into large pieces

1 shallot

5 cloves garlic

1 whole dried tangerine peel

1 star anise

½ stick cinnamon

1 tablespoon cooking oil

Sauce Mixture

2 tablespoon light soy sauce

2 tablespoon dark soy sauce

2 tablespoon oyster sauce

2 tablespoon Chinese cooking wine

2 tablespoon Chou Hou sauce (Lee Kum Kee makes this)
1 tablespoon ground bean sauce 

2 to 3 pieces red fermented beancurd, mashed with a fork

1 tablespoon fermented beancurd juice (this is the "pickling" juice from the red beancurd)

Directions

1.      Boil up a pot of water and blanch brisket and tendon to remove impurities (this step is important as the tendon is a bit "smelly", and boiling it takes that smell away. Do NOT omit this step). Discard the water, wash the pieces of meat and tendon in cold water to remove scum,  and cut the tendon and brisket into bite sized pieces.

2.      Soak the dried tangerine peel in hot water until soft. Scrape the white pith away. Leave whole

3.      Smash the garlic cloves, peel and slice the shallot into thin pieces, and peel and slice the ginger root lengthwise. Place all this in a small saucer and add the star anise, rehydrated tangerine peel, and cinnamon to it. Set aside

4.      Mix all sauce ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.

5.      Heat the cooking oil in a large wok and stir fry the rock sugar until it caramelizes. Add the ginger, shallot, garlic, tangerine peel, star anise and cinnamon stick. Fry until fragrant.

6.      Add the sauce mixture to the wok, and fry until it starts to bubble. Mix in the brisket and tendon chunks to coat with the sauce.

7.      Pour the above mixture into a 6-8 quart slow cooker and add 3 cups of water (or enough to just cover the beef and tendon). Cook on high for 3-4 hours (beef tendon and brisket cook at different times so I pressure cooked the tendon pieces for 30 minutes, prior to this stage. That way I could put both in the slow cooker at the same time. If you opt not to pressure the tendon before, put the tendon in the slow cooker at least 1 hour in advance of the brisket).

8.      Add the chopped daikon and carrots during the last hour, and cook till fork tender. Remove the meat and vegetables from the slow cooker, and pour the liquid into a wok. Boil on high heat until the volume of liquid is reduced by a half. Thicken with a slurry of cornstarch and water. Eat with rice or noodles.

Mango Plantain Quick Bread

Growing up on a Caribbean island meant that one always had a surplus of tropical fruits like mangos and plantains. In Jamaica, the most common use of Plantain in a desert is in Plantain Tarts or Turnovers. I guess they could be called "Empanadas de Platano" in Latin American countries. Indeed, in those countries like Panama where Jamaicans, and people from other Caribbean islands went to work at the turn of the 20th century to help build the Panama Canal, they also left their mark on the cuisine of those countries. In Panama, the Plantain Tart is called "Plantita" with an accent on the final "a". I never much liked Plantain Tarts as a child, and back then nobody ever thought about using them to make anything else. I thought therefore I would start using them in Quick Breads, and I have a number of variations on this site. For this one, I thought I'd like to try these two favorites together to make a bread. To achieve the balance of sweetness I wanted, without using too much sugar, I used very, very ripe plantains. It's at that point that the sugars in the fruit are at their highest concentration. The resulting bread is a very dense, very crusty, slightly sweet, and delicately flavored product that's just great with afternoon te or coffee, and spread with your favorite jelly or jam!
Ingredients

2 cups bread or all-purpose flour

½ cup Scottish oatmeal

¼ cup grated coconut
1 ½ teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt  
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon  

½ teaspoon allspice

½ teaspoon grated nutmeg

½ teaspoon ground coriander (optional)
¾ cup brown sugar

¼ cup granulated sugar

½ cup canola oil
½ cup Greek or strained yogurt 
3 eggs, well beaten

Juice and zest from 1 lemon or lime
1 tsp vanilla
1 ¼ cup mango, coarsely shredded (the flesh of the mango should not be green but yellow and firm, not yellow, soft and ripe)

1 ¼ cups very ripe peeled, steamed, and mashed Plantain

½ cup dried cranberries, finely chopped

¼ cup milk or half and half

Directions

1.      Mix flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder and soda, and dry spices together in a bowl. Set aside.

2.      Cut and peel the plantain,

and steam in a small amount of water until cooked.

Remove from heat, drain and mash the measured amount. Add the oil and yogurt to this and mix well.

3.      Peel and shred the mango using the large holes on your grater. Add the lemon juice, zest, and dried cranberries to this and set aside.

4.      In a large mixing bowl, whisk sugars, oil, and vanilla until pale in color.  Mix in the mango and plantain mixture. Add dry ingredients all at once and mix until just blended.  Do this quickly as the chemical reaction between the soda and the lemon juice starts at this point to form carbon dioxide bubbles.  Add the milk and mix until incorporated. The batter will be thick just like a bread dough. Pour into greased and floured loaf pan.

5.      Bake at 350 degrees for 60-70 minutes or until a cake tester (skewer) inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.