Cantonese Beef Stew 牛腩
By Michael · from our van kitchen
Flank, tendon, tripe and daikon, braised in chu hou paste until you can cut the beef with a spoon. To me this Cantonese beef stew is the ultimate comfort food, and I’ve made it a few times on camera in the van.
The version on this page is from April 2026 in Indianapolis. It was a gloomy, rainy day, we were stealth camping in the city, and the beef had been sitting in our fridge taking up space. I was planning to save it for a campground, but it made more sense to cook it right then. It turned out to be perfect for such a chilly day. Watch me make it.
Why the daikon goes in last
The beef, the tendon and the daikon all need very different cook times. The flank and the tendon take the longest to get tender, and the tendon was the part I was most worried about. The daikon is much quicker, and if it goes in too soon it turns soggy. So the beef gets the pressure cooker first, and the daikon goes in at the end.
Our pressure cooker is small, only 3 quarts, so I wasn’t sure everything would fit. I put the flank and tendon in first and squeezed in as much stomach as I could. It was full right to the top. The daikon had no room, so I moved everything into a big pot on the stove to finish it.
What I learned from the first tries
The first time I made it in the pressure cooker, in April 2025, we were camped on BLM land on the way to Dinosaur National Monument, after driving through a snowstorm. We didn’t have rock sugar, so Rina added a little light brown sugar instead. I cooked the beef for about 30 minutes, then added the daikon with a little oyster sauce, soy sauce, cornstarch and water, and cooked it for another 15. The texture was pretty good, but the flavour was too light. We both thought it needed more chu hou paste or more oyster sauce. A few days later I made it again and used more chu hou paste.
How it came out
The tendon was perfect. Still some chew to it, but super tender. The stomach soaks up the sauce in all its little crevices, so it’s very tasty. The flank was almost too tender. After 45 minutes plus the rest, it was falling apart, and I had to stir really gently. Next time I’d keep the flank a little firmer so it holds its shape.
The daikon was the one thing that wasn’t ready when we sat down. Some pieces were still crunchy, so I kept the pot going a little longer.
I like it with flat rice noodles, but that night we served it over rice. Spencer helped me wash the rice. Make sure you spoon some of the sauce onto the rice, that’s what makes it so good. We couldn’t finish it all, so we had leftovers the next day too.
Ingredients
The beef
- Beef flank, with the flat layer on top left on, cut in 1½ to 2 inch pieces
- Beef tendon, left whole
- Beef stomach (honeycomb tripe)
For blanching
- Ginger
- Shaoxing wine
Aromatics
- A little oil
- Ginger
- Whites of the scallions
- 5 or 6 cloves garlic, smashed
Sauce
- About 4 tablespoons chu hou paste
- Bay leaf
- 3 star anise
- 1 to 1½ tablespoons Shaoxing wine
- 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
- 2 tablespoons light soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
- About ½ tablespoon white pepper
- Water, enough to cover the meat
- A small piece of rock sugar
To finish
- 1 big daikon, peeled and cut in decent-sized chunks
- Salt and sugar, to taste
- Scallion, for the top
- Rice, or flat rice noodles (ho fun)
Steps
- Cut the flank into little squares or rectangles, about 1½ to 2 inches. Leave the flat layer on top on, it gives a nice chewy texture. The tendon is really hard to cut, so leave it whole. Blanch the stomach first and cut it after.
- Put the meat in a pot of water with some ginger and Shaoxing wine. Once it starts to boil, blanch it for about 8 minutes. You'll see the impurities float to the top.
- Pour out all the water and rinse the meat until the water runs clear.
- Peel the daikon and cut it into decent-sized chunks, not too small and not too big. Keep it aside. It cooks much faster than the beef, so it goes in last.
- Set the pressure cooker to saute. Add a little oil, then the ginger, scallion whites and garlic. Give it a few minutes to get the flavour of the aromatics out.
- Add about 4 tablespoons of chu hou paste and stir it in for about 30 seconds so the paste releases its flavour. Then add the bay leaf and 3 star anise.
- Pile in the beef. The flank and the tendon come first. If there's room left, add the stomach.
- Pour in 1 to 1½ tablespoons of Shaoxing wine to deglaze the bottom and stir.
- Add 1 tablespoon oyster sauce, 2 tablespoons light soy sauce, 1 tablespoon dark soy sauce and about ½ tablespoon white pepper. Add water to just cover the meat, without going over the max line. Drop in a small piece of rock sugar for a little sweetness.
- Close the lid, turn off saute and pressure cook for 45 minutes. I let it sit for about 25 minutes after it finished, then put a paper towel on top and released the rest of the pressure.
- Check the tendon and flank. The tendon should be tender but still have some chew.
- Pour everything into a bigger pot on the stove, add the daikon and push it down so it's under the liquid. Cook it for about 15 minutes, and keep going if the daikon isn't soft yet.
- Taste it. Mine needed a little more saltiness and a little sugar. Stir gently from here, the flank is so tender it falls apart.
- Serve over rice with plenty of the sauce, or with flat rice noodles, and put a little scallion on top.
Amounts are what I said in the video. Where I didn't measure, it says "to taste". Cook it your way.
