Jieshou Five-Spice Beef 界首五香牛肉

Jieshou Five-Spice Beef (界首五香牛肉) is spiced beef from Jieshou (界首), a city in north-west Anhui; the Anhui civil affairs department lists it among the products Jieshou has built up under its place-name branding work. The version documented by the Jieshou city government is the Lü Changming (吕长明) family's braised beef, a Jieshou specialty known across the Central Plains (中原); five-spice braised beef (五香烧牛肉) is one of its main products.

How it is made

The Lü Changming beef uses yellow cattle beef (黄牛肉) from the Huaibei (淮北) region north of the Huai River, seasoned with sixteen natural spices. It is prepared by boiling, smoking, steaming and frying, with an aged master stock (陈年老汤).

Flavour and texture

The finished beef is a glossy reddish colour and the cut face is bright red. The meat is tender and close-grained: the fatter parts are not greasy, the lean parts are not dry, and it is evenly soft inside and out. The saltiness is moderate and the spiced flavour is mellow and long-lasting.

Where it comes from

The Lü family recipe is traced to the Tongzhi reign (同治) of the Qing dynasty and has been handed down for more than 100 years. In 1995 Lü Changming's son Lü Jinyou (吕金友) set up a halal food company in Jieshou named after his father, and in 1997 the company's beef won a gold award at the third China Agricultural Expo. In May 2016 the making technique of Lü Changming braised beef entered the fourth list of municipal intangible cultural heritage of Fuyang (阜阳). Besides five-spice beef, the range includes sauce-braised beef, dried beef and beef shank.