For centuries, stews have been one of the most cooked dishes in the history of humankind. Apart from a bowl of warm soup, stews were generally made during winter time to warm the body. Nowadays, stews have become so common that all cuisines have its signature stew.
Bo Sot Vang
Beef stew has been the staple dish in Vietnam since ages ago. As for how the Vietnamese community loves it, this Vietnamese beef stew is filled and packed with aromatic scent from the red wine sauce. I mean, what pairs best with beef other than wine. So let us start cooking!
Ingredients:
First, you will need a few herbs to season your beef beforehand. So here is what you will need:
- About 1kg of beef brisket/beef shank/beef shin (or whichever beef parts that you prefer)
- A pinch of salt to taste
- One teaspoon of sugar
- 2-3 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
- One small stalk of ginger, finely chopped
- One stem of spring onions, chopped
- 1 cup of red wine
Next, for the cooking part, this is what you will need:
- Cooking oil
- One cinnamon stick
- One onion, roughly chopped
- Two big tomatoes, chopped
- 150ml red wine
- 2-3 star anise
- One bay leaf
- Five carrot stalks, cut into big chunks
- Salt, pepper and sugar
- Coriander or spring onion for garnishing
How to Cook?
- First, you will need to cut your beef parts into chunks. Wash your beef thoroughly a few times and dry them with paper towels.
- Next, pour in the seasoning ingredients into the beef chunks and start mixing all of them. Make sure you mix them evenly and pour in the red wine after mixing it.
- Cover the bowl and let it sit in the red wine for about 2 hours or until the beef mixture absorbs the wine.
- In a large pot, heat the cooking oil and sauté the onions and garlic until it is fragrant.
- Add in the tomatoes and sit until they are soft and juicy.
- Pour in the beef mixture and stir fry it for a few minutes, add red wine and hot water until the water level covers the beef chunks.
- Mix in the cinnamon stick, star anise and bay leaf, simmer it on low heat.
- Add in salt, pepper and sugar and cover the lid. Simmer off the mixture for about 30 – 40 minutes.
- Pour in the carrot chunks and continue to simmer it for about 20 minutes or so.
- After that, add in more red wine and garnish with coriander or spring onions.
- Serve while it is hot.