Directions

• Same as in many Asian meat stew recipes, soaking meat in cold unseasoned water ahead of time is the first step of making this stew. The reason I was given by my mom (also the reason you maybe find online) is to get rid of the excessive blood in the meat. Some may argue, that this step is unnecessary and it is potentially an old holdover from past times where meat processing was different. For me, I still believe that this process will give the broth a cleaner taste, it might just be in my head, but I don’t usually skip this step when I cook Chinese meat broth. For the beef shin, which I purchased from a local supermarket, I have soaked them in cold unseasoned water for 2 hours. At first, you could see the water turning pink after a while.
• Change 2-3 times during soaking your beef, towards the end, you should be able to notice, the meat has visibly become “whiter”.
• While we are soaking the beef shin, we can start preparing the beef tomatoes. Give them a light cross cut on top. Make sure you cut through the skin.
• Bring a pot of water to a boil and gently drop your tomatoes in, let them sit for a good 30 seconds.
• Take them out and rinse under cold water. Peel their skin. I always find this process quite calming for some reason.
• Cut them into small chunks, approximately 2cmx2cm.
• Heat up a cooking pot, and add ½ tbsp of vegetable oil, wait for it to heat up. Add 1 star anise, ½ cinnamon stick, 3 pieces of bay leaves, and 3 slices of ginger in the oil quickly stir fry.
• After the smell of the spices is released, add your beef shin in the pot and 1 tbsp of Soybean (yellow bean) paste, stir fry until meat is browned nicely.
• Add tomatoes to the pot with ¼ tsp of salt, mix well, put the lid on, and let it cook on medium-high heat until tomatoes are soft like this.
• Add 20g pure cane sugar to the stew. Change to low heat and let it cook until tomato juice could cover your meat in the cooking pot.
• Take the spices out and put the stew in your pressure cooker. I set mine to stew mode, which is 30 minutes.
• Garnish it any way you want. There you have it! A thick, tasty, and healthy Chinese Beef Tomato Stew. A perfect dinner choice with your loved ones. Try it and let us know your thoughts! 请慢用（qǐng màn yòng) Enjoy!