Stuffed Chinese Cabbage Leaves
白菜牛肉卷
English: Stuffed Chinese Cabbage Leaves
Chinese: 白菜牛肉卷
Pinyin: bai cai niu rou juan
Literal: Cabbage and Beef Rolls
Chinese cabbage (or Napa Cabbage) is a native vegetable to Beijing and the surrounding provinces. Few other vegetables were hardy enough to survive the winters of the North, but cabbages were happy in the frozen soil. Northerners have been relying on cabbages before Beijing was even a city. In fact, it was so important to China, it’s simply know as ‘big white vegetable’ (da bai cai); no other descriptor is needed.
In the 1950s and 60s, if a family could afford it, they would stock up on Napa cabbages in late autumn, piling them up in hutong courtyards. The weather was cold enough to refrigerate them until needed. Those stacks of cabbages were a visual metaphor for the resilience and self-sufficiency needed during the tough times. The cabbage was an essential companion for those that would survive famine.
Nowadays, you still see Napa cabbages on the windowsills of Beijing apartments, seemingly rotting, but usually getting ready to be turned into sauerkraut (suan cai), kimchi (pao cai), chopped into dumplings, added to soups or stir-fried. For the older generation, the memories die hard - it’s better to be safe with too much cabbage than sorry with nothing. Stuffed Napa cabbage leaves was traditionally a dish prepared during feast or celebration as meat was an indulgence, particularly beef. Of course, today this crops up on dinner tables all across the North.
Serves 4
Ingredients
1 small Chinese cabbage - 10 leaves peeled
350g minced beef
For the sauce
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
1 tablespoon garlic - finely chopped
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon chilli powder
1 tablespoon chilli flakes
1 ½ tablespoon hot oil
½ teaspoon oyster sauce
2 teaspoons Chinese black vinegar + a splash
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
The rest
1 small red onion - finely sliced
1 bunch coriander - chopped
Method
Make the sauce first. In a small bowl add the sesame seeds, garlic, sugar, chilli powder and chilli flakes.
Heat the oil in a wok until it’s smoking, then pour over all of the ingredients. It should sizzle.
Add the soy sauce, vinegar and oyster sauce and mix altogether until the powders and sugar dissolve.
Cut the white root off the Napa cabbage and separate the leaves. Blanch the leaves in a pan of boiling water for 30 seconds, then drain and set aside. Be careful, you don’t want to tear the leaves.
Heat a wok over a medium heat with a drizzle of oil. Fry the beef for 1-2 minutes and turn off the heat. Salt the beef (not too much, the soy sauce dressing will also be salty) and add a splash of vinegar.
Add the sliced onion and coriander to a mixing bowl, pour over the sauce and mix together. Add in the beef and stir until all the flavours are mixed. If the beef had a lot of water or liquid, pour that off before adding to the mix.
Place one cabbage leaf onto a chopping board, add a few large spoons of the stuffing (about 4-5 tablespoons) roughly in the middle of the leaf and then roll the leaf up and tuck the ends in snuggly. Repeat until all the stuffing is used. Plate and serve.
Note: I overstuffed my leaves in the pictures and also forgot to tuck the ends in. Don’t model your version on my picture, you can do better!
