Beef Tripe with Black Bean Sauce, 豆豉牛百叶

The best way to stomach the stomach is with a little black bean sauce

In my opinion, tripe in itself is a little bland and the main value add is its interesting texture. Plus, the little folds do a great job of trapping sauces, and there’s few things that pack as much of a punch as a few fermented black beans.

Ingredients 

• black beans in oil

  • you can also buy dried preserved black beans, but you'll need dice and soak them in vegetable oil for storage.

  • Note: the black beans are already pre-salted when you buy from the store

• tripe

• 1 tablespoon salt

• 3 shakes of white pepper

• corn starch

• sesame oil

• vegetable oil

• scallions

• ginger

Steps

Tripe is usually bought as a giant connected piece. There's a thick half-shell skin, with flaps in the middle.

Separate between the flaps and cut long lines down the thick skin. Try not to cut the flaps.

Cut the tripe into small rectangular pieces. 

Wash the tripe in a large bowl.

You can buy black beans soaked in oil. If you bought dry black beans, prepare the black beans by dicing them into small pieces and soaking with vegetable oil for a 1-2 hours.

If the black beans were bought dry, you need to steam the black bean-oil mixture. As a short-cut, you can also microwave the black beans to release the flavor. This step is not necessary if you already bought black beans in oil.

Heat up a wok with cooking oil. Start by stir-frying slices of ginger. Then add the beef tripe and stir fry until done.

Add the black bean sauce. If the tripe is not salty enough, feel free to add some more salt. Add a couple dashes of white pepper. Stir fry for 30 more seconds.

Add 1-2 dashes of sesame oil.

In a separate bowl, make a mixture of cornstarch and water.

Only add a little of the cornstarch-water mixture. If you add too much, it'll get too thick. Ideally, the dish has little to no water/juice.

In the photo below, "That's too much in the ladle!"

"Look at how much water there is in this photo. Terrible."

Serve it on a plate! "The dish should look less saucy than this photo."