Crispy Orange Beef

Why this recipe works:

Traditionally, this dish is made by frying multiple batches of lightly battered beef in about 8 cups of oil. We simplify the recipe by replacing the batter with a coating of cornstarch and freezing the dredged pieces of beef for easier handling as well as decreasing the oil to 3 cups. Our sauce uses orange pith as well as zest to add complex bitter notes. By caramelizing the orange peel before building the sauce, we mimic the flavor of the dried tangerine peels that are typically used.

Serves 4

Use a vegetable peeler on the oranges and make sure that your strips contain some pith. Do not use low-sodium soy sauce. Serve this dish with steamed rice.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 pounds beef flap meat, trimmed
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 6 tablespoons cornstarch
• 10 (3-inch) strips orange peel, sliced thin lengthwise (1/4 cup), plus 1/4 cup juice (2 oranges)
• 3 tablespoons molasses
• 2 tablespoons dry sherry
• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
• 3 cups vegetable oil
• 1 jalapeño chile, stemmed, seeded, and sliced thin lengthwise
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 2 scallions, sliced thin on bias

Instructions

1. 
   
   1. Cut beef along grain into 2½- to 3-inch-wide lengths. Slice each piece against grain into ½-inch-thick slices. Cut each slice lengthwise into ½-inch-wide strips. Toss beef with 1 tablespoon soy sauce in bowl. Add cornstarch and toss until evenly coated. Spread beef in single layer on wire rack set in rimmed baking sheet. Transfer sheet to freezer until meat is very firm but not completely frozen, about 45 minutes.
   
   2. Whisk remaining 2 tablespoons soy sauce, orange juice, molasses, sherry, vinegar, and sesame oil together in bowl.
   
   3. Line second rimmed baking sheet with triple layer of paper towels. Heat vegetable oil in large Dutch oven over medium heat until oil registers 375 degrees. Carefully add one-third of beef and fry, stirring occasionally to keep beef from sticking together, until golden brown, about 1½ minutes. Using spider, transfer meat to paper towel–lined sheet. Return oil to 375 degrees and repeat twice more with remaining beef. After frying, reserve 2 tablespoons frying oil.
   
   4. Heat reserved oil in 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add orange peel and jalapeño and cook, stirring occasionally, until about half of orange peel is golden brown, 1½ to 2 minutes. Add garlic, ginger, and ­pepper flakes; cook, stirring frequently, until garlic is beginning to brown, about 45 seconds. Add soy sauce mixture and cook, scraping up any browned bits, until slightly thickened, about 45 seconds. Add beef and scallions and toss. Transfer to platter and serve immediately.
   
   
   

Technique

Turning Orange into Tangerine

Traditionally, crispy orange beef is made with dried -tangerine peels, which have a pungent and complex flavor but can be tricky to find. We mimic this flavor by leaving some bitter pith on orange peel that we brown in oil.

PURPOSELY PITHY: Leaving some pith on fresh orange peel helps to mimic the flavor of dried tangerine peel.

Technique

Deep-Fried Doesn't Have to Mean Greasy

The most common misconception about deep-frying battered foods is that the results are always greasy. But this doesn’t have to be the case at all. When battered foods are deep-fried in hot oil, water in the batter and near the exterior of the meat turns to vapor and exits. Once the water exits, there is space for a small amount of oil to take its place. The amount of oil absorbed is directly proportional to the amount of water lost. The more water out the more oil in.
But our Crispy Orange Beef seemed to take in even less oil than we expected: When we weighed the fry oil before and after cooking, we found that the entire 1½ pounds of beef absorbed only 7/8 ounce, or 2 tablespoons, of oil. How was this possible? It all comes down to the meat’s coating. Instead of dipping the beef in the traditional batter for this recipe—a moist mixture of egg white and cornstarch—we simply dredged it in dry cornstarch. Since cornstarch has virtually no moisture to lose on its own, this meant that all the moisture lost during frying was coming from the beef alone. (With battered beef, both the coating and the meat lose moisture.) The upshot: Less moisture was lost, so less oil was absorbed.

ONLY 2 TABLESPOONS: Our beef absorbs very little oil.

Technique

A Better Cut for Frying

To prevent beef from folding over on itself while frying, cut flap meat steaks into 3-inch-wide lengths, then into 1/2-inch-thick slices, and the slices into 1/2-inch-wide strips.

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Tuscan-Style Beef Stew

 Tuscan-Style Beef Stew

Tuscan beef stew (peposo), a stew made by the tilemakers of Florence's famous Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral Duomo, is a simple stew of beef braised in wine, with loads of peppercorns and a head of garlic cloves. To improve the texture and flavor of ours without veering too far from the original, we added tomato paste and anchovies for meatiness, powdered gelatin for body, and shallots, carrots, and herbs for complexity. To ensure a full-bodied wine flavor, we add some wine at the beginning of the long braise, more before reducing the sauce, and a small amount at the end. And we did the same with the peppercorns: cracked pepper at the start, ground pepper toward the end, and more cracked pepper on serving.
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Tuscan-Style Beef Stew

In this simple yet rich stew, just two ingredients—Chianti and black pepper—provide most of the complexity. But when you add them to the pot makes all the difference. Watch the Video

Serves 6 to 8

We prefer boneless short ribs in this recipe because they require very little trimming. If you cannot find them, substitute a 5-pound chuck roast. Trim the roast of large pieces of fat and sinew, and cut it into 2-inch pieces. If Chianti is unavailable, a medium-bodied wine such as Côtes du Rhône or Pinot Noir makes a nice substitute. Serve with polenta or crusty bread.

Ingredients

• 4 pounds boneless beef short ribs, trimmed and cut into 2-inch pieces
• Salt
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 (750-ml) bottle Chianti
• 1 cup water
• 4 shallots, peeled and halved lengthwise
• 2 carrots, peeled and halved lengthwise
• 1 garlic head, cloves separated, unpeeled, and crushed
• 4 sprigs fresh rosemary
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tablespoon cracked black peppercorns, plus extra for serving
• 1 tablespoon unflavored gelatin
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 teaspoon anchovy paste
• 2 teaspoons ground black pepper
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch

Instructions

1. 
   
   1. Toss beef and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt together in bowl and let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 300 degrees.
   2. Heat oil in large Dutch oven over medium-high heat until just smoking. Add half of beef in single layer and cook until well browned on all sides, about 8 minutes total, reducing heat if fond begins to burn. Stir in 2 cups wine, water, shallots, carrots, garlic, rosemary, bay leaves, cracked peppercorns, gelatin, tomato paste, anchovy paste, and remaining beef. Bring to simmer and cover tightly with sheet of heavy-duty aluminum foil, then lid. Transfer to oven and cook until beef is tender, 2 to 2 1/4 hours, stirring halfway through cooking time.
   3. Using slotted spoon, transfer beef to bowl; cover tightly with foil and set aside. Strain sauce through fine-mesh strainer into fat separator. Wipe out pot with paper towels. Let liquid settle for 5 minutes, then return defatted liquid to pot.
   4. Add 1 cup wine and ground black pepper and bring mixture to boil over medium-high heat. Simmer briskly, stirring occasionally, until sauce is thickened to consistency of heavy cream, 12 to 15 minutes.
   5. Combine remaining wine and cornstarch in small bowl. Reduce heat to medium-low, return beef to pot, and stir in cornstarch-wine mixture. Cover and simmer until just heated through, 5 to 8 minutes. Season with salt to taste. Serve, passing extra cracked peppercorns separately. (Stew can be made up to 3 days in advance.)
   
   
   

Technique

Cheap Wine is Fine

Early recipes for peposo relied on inexpensive Chianti, while modern versions call for a midpriced bottle (whether Chianti or a similar Tuscan wine such as Montepulciano or Brunello). We made batches using cheap ($5), midpriced ($12), and pricey ($20) Chianti, along with other varieties we often use in the kitchen: Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, and Côtes du Rhône.
We were surprised that the stew made with the cheapest Chianti went over well with most tasters. While the midpriced wine was agreeable to everyone, there was no advantage to cooking with the expensive bottle. Highly oaked, tannic wines like Cabernet became harsh when cooked, but cheap bottles of fruitier pinot and Côtes du Rhône made good stand-ins for the Chianti.

Technique

Maximizing the Flavors from Wine and Pepper

The flavor compounds in wine and pepper can be classified by their behavior during cooking. Stable compounds don’t change, but volatile compounds evaporate, and unstable compounds break down. Over time, the result is a loss of flavor. Most recipes we found for this stew call for adding all the wine and pepper at once, at the start of a 2 1/2-hour simmer. At the end of cooking, the flavors remaining were only those of the stable compounds. By adding some of the wine and pepper 15 minutes before finishing cooking, and the remainder of wine and pepper at the end, we were able to preserve more of the volatile and unstable compounds, capturing the most fleeting, bright, fresh flavors from both the wine and the pepper.

OTHER STEWS: LESS FLAVOR
All the wine and pepper are added at the start, so many of the compounds break down or dissipate by the end of the long simmer.
TRIANGLES: Volatile compounds evaporate
CIRCLES: Unstable compounds break down
SQUARES: Stable compounds remain

OUR STEW: MORE FLAVOR
We add wine and pepper in three stages to guarantee full flavor contributions from all three types of compounds.

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