Beef in Chili Sauce (Fuqi feipian)
By admin on 2015-01-16

Beef in Chili Sauce is one of the most popular Sichuan dishes—beautiful in color, soft and tender, aromatic and spicy.

Many people used to translate this dish word for word as “Husband and wife’s lung slice,” which, unfortunately, tends to terrify diners and make this dish not so popular among foreigners. Therefore, a better translation would be “Beef in Chili Sauce”.

Beef in Chili Sauce is often served as a cold dish. It is made of thinly sliced beef, beef lung/stomach/tongue, and a generous amount of spices, including Sichuan pepper corns and Chili. Therefore, the desired taste should be both spicy and mouth-numbing. Some people refuse to eat animal viscera, either due to cultural conceptions or they think it is associated with junk food. As a result, Fuqi feipian has lost a lot of customers. But in fact, there are no lung slices in this dish at all.

History of Beef in Chili Sauce

The original meaning of Fuqi Feipian (夫妻废片) would be literally translated as “Married Couple’s Offal Slices.” The meaning of Fei in this name is not lung, but “waste parts or offal.” However, Fei or “waste parts or offal” has a negative meaning in Chinese, so the couple simply changed the character “废” to “肺” (lung) since they have the same pronunciation in Chinese. In addition, when it comes to Chinese food, lung always means pork lung. Therefore, the exact translation would be “Pork Lungs in Chili Sauce.

The legend of Pork Lungs in Chili Sauce dates back to the 1930s. There is a romantic story of the origin of this famous “Beef in Chili Sauce” Sichuan dish.

In the 1930s, there was a married couple in Chengdu famous for making beef slices. The husband Guo Zhaohua and his wife Zhang Tianzheng were very particular about the beef slices they made, and often experimented with new ingredients. As a result, their beef slices had a distinct taste which was well-received by customers, so that no one could resist the charming smell in their street. However, mischievous children sometimes would pull a prank on the couples and stick a paper notes that says “Married Couple’s Offal Slices” (Fuqi Feipian) on their backs. And due to this, people would yell the words out. Later on, a merchant tried the married couple’s beef slices and was so satisfied he gave them a gold-lettered plaque that read “Fuqi feipian” (夫妻废片), and the name has stuck ever since.

Now let’s come to the cooking method of Beef in Chili Sauce.

Ingredients: 500 grams (1.10 lb) tender beef, 1000 grams (2 cups) gravy made by stewing chicken or duck, 5 grams (1/6 oz) peppercorns, 5 grams (1/6oz) cassia, 5 grams (1/6 oz) star anise, 50 grams (2 1/2 tbsp) salt, 25grams (1 ? tbsp) Chinese white liquor, 50 grams (1 1/2 tbsp) soy sauce, 5 grams (1 ? tsp) MSG, 10 grams (2 tsp) spicy oil, 5 grams (1tsp) pepper powder, 5 grams (1/6oz) sesame 10 grams (1/3oz) crushed peanuts.

Steps to cook Beef in Chili Sauce

1. Wash beef, clean and boil for 5 minutes. Take out and drain water.

2. Heat the sauce in a pot, add peppercorns, cassia, salt, liquor and ? cup of water and bring to a boil. Put in beef, stew for 2 hours. Take out and cool off.

3. Use 50g (3tbsp) of the sauce along with soy sauce, MSG, spicy oil and pepper powder to make seasoning.

4. Cut beef into thin slices and put on a plate. Sprinkle on seasoning, then sesame oil and peanuts. It’s now ready to serve. Key to success: Timing and fire under the boiling process must be accurate.

If you cooked according to above steps correctly, the dish will be spicy, peppery and delicious.

Note to eat Beef in Chili Sauce Having Beef in Chili Sauce can effectively complement the body’s demand for these substances because animal organs like beef hearts and stomachs in this dish are rich in iron, zinc and other trace elements and vitamins A, B2, D and so on. However, you are hereby warned not to eat too much of it too frequently: twice a week would be nice, and per capita consumption cannot be more than 50 grams. In addition, people with high blood lipids had better not eat this dish due to the high levels of cholesterol in animal organs.