🍽️ Poached Spicy Beef

Zigong salt-kitchen spicy beef poach.

Poached Spicy Beef is a flagship of Zigong's “salt-kitchen” cuisine in Sichuan, known for bold, layered flavour. Tenderloin is sliced thin, coated in egg white and starch, then quickly blanched in a bubbly red broth flavoured with Pixian broad-bean paste; it is served in a deep bowl with the broth, topped with garlic, scallion, dried chili and Sichuan peppercorn, over which a ladle of smoking hot oil is poured to sizzle and release the aroma. The beef is silky and tender, the broth glossy red with a balance of numbing heat and savouriness, and the garlic-pepper perfume rises with the oil. Despite the name “water-boiled”, it is rich, oily and fiery — a signature of Zigong's salt-merchant cooking, best eaten with rice.