Yunnan's Glorious Ganba 云南牛肉干巴

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This bold-flavored air-cured beef 牛肉干巴 originated with Yunnan's Muslim  回族 population hundreds and hundreds of years ago, but soon took the entire province by storm. Yunnan's Han 汉族 population prides itself on making succulent salt-cured huotui ham 火腿, and I've told you about that in an earlier post. These two meats are Yunnan's pride and joy, with our special Yiliang roast duck 宜良烤鸭 being a definite contender as well.

 

The best of Yunnan's 牛肉干巴 comes from steep, rocky Zhaotong Prefecture 昭通州, up in the northeast of the province. This is a poor area, where once there was mining until it pretty much played out; and it's not a place tourists go unless they are very adventurous or are lost. Zhaotong now survives by subsistence farming and by raising sheep, goats and lean, rugged cattle.

 

If you have been above Lijiang and Shangri-La, far up in Yunnan's popular northwest, you might have run into the delicious dried beef made from the huge hairy yak 毛牛 which thrive in the high mountains there. This is sold in small strips, mainly for snack chewing much like western jerky. It costs three or four times as much as the sort of more standard Zhaotong niu ganba 昭通牛干巴 we are discussing today.

 

It's typically made from lean beef hindquarter meat, which is butchered into long pieces that follow the grain of the muscle. These are rubbed with salt and an assortment of spices, then hung on racks out of direct sun and allowed to air dry for several weeks. As the curing proceeds, the meat is cut into smaller strips and rubbed repeatedly with a combination of salt 食盐, hot pepper 辣椒，prickly ash 花椒，fennel 茴香 and perhaps some others, such as crushed star anise 八角。

 

 

 

At this point the meat can be shredded into floss for use in manufactured snack food or pounded into thin strips to make jerky. But the best of it is left as is and just cut to order across the grain and sold by weight in specialty stores, such as the one I visited yesterday in my neighborhood market.

 

 

This popular stall is near the entrance to the market and they always draw a crowd. They sell a similar cured meat made from goats, but it is not as popular. I usually buy a piece of this cured beef, take it home and slice it myself to use in a stir fry.

 

 

These guys are the same ones from whom I usually buy my tasty rubing 乳饼 (Yunnan goat cheese, pictured above) and they had been urging me to go "all the way" with their ganba for the best part of a year. So yesterday I finally gave in and decided to try it the more authentic 地道 and more popular way: deep fried with handfuls of dried chilies 干辣椒 and Sichuan Peppercorns 花椒。I wanted to experiment with just a trial-size piece, but 40 Yuan was the smallest order they would accept when cooking it for me there on the premises.

 

A young woman carefully shook the thinly sliced meat into a deep wok of boiling oil after dumping in a generous handful of spices. The oil was already quite fragrant, since she uses the same batch over and over for each customer's order.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She stirs it with a large perforated ladle 汤勺, carefully cooking it until well done. Then she scoops it into a paper carton 桶, which is placed in an open top plastic bag.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The young man in the white butcher smock who was advising me said I could eat it just as is, letting it be part of a larger meal alongside vegetables dishes and rice. He said it could be warmed in the microwave for a few seconds if desired. I told him I would prefer to use it in a stir fry, and he said that was OK, but kind of wasteful 浪费 because cheaper meat would be adequate for that application.

 

When I got home I nibbled a few pieces of it plain just to get an idea of its potency. Wow, it explodes in your mouth! Incredibly rich: concentrated flavor of cured beef plus all those aggressive spices and dripping with now-scented oil. But it was too much for my palate, and I had to mix it with some vegetables to dilute the strong kick a little bit.

 

Cut up some crinkly Yunnan green peppers 虎皮椒 along with a scallion 葱，and a tomato 番茄。

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And of course my fine cured and fried beef, bursting with Soutwest China flavor. (Even though it originated here, it is popular today in Sichuan, Guizhou and Guangxi as well.)

 

 

 

Made a quick stir-fry, giving the vegetables a head start since the meat was already fully cooked. The resulting dish was monumentally loaded with flavor. Definitely not bland or boring. It would never remotely be mistaken for 清淡 Guangdong fare 粤菜 and it is admittedly not something everyone would enjoy.

 

 

Served it with steamed rice 米饭 as a 盖饭。I was eating alone, and much prefer to make a one-dish supper when it's feasible. With guests, I take a different approach to meal planning.

 

 

 

But I'd have to say it was right up there at the top when it comes to exploring adventurous regional cuisine. Being able to discover things that are not readily available elsewhere, like glorious Yunnan ganba 云南牛肉干把, is one of the reasons I like living here. Be sure to try some when you visit Yunnan.

 

 

[889]

Very nice!

 

With such a strongly-seasoned meat, getting the right balance of accompanying flavors must be difficult.

 

Is it all made lovingly by hand, or does the stuff in sealed plastic come from factories that probably make the plastic as well?

 

Also, is the taste about the same as 灯影牛肉? I've never been clear how that's made.

 

(Prickly ash = Sichuan pepper.)

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Thanks, @889. I think 灯影牛肉 is a little different, in that it is either sliced thin like paper, or pounded and shredded. I've eaten it in Chengdu, but have not seen it made. Taste was similar, but not identical; the texture was different, however. (I can't remember it well enough to precisely describe.)

 

The Yunnan Ganba I buy here is made and sold by one extended family with roots and a farm still in Zhaotong Prefecture. I honestly don't know to what extent they have automated the upstream manufacturing process, but this end of the supply chain, where the finished meat is cut, cooked and sold looks like it runs pretty much by hand.

 

This is the same shop where I usually buy ru-bing goat cheese 乳饼 and they make some of that in Zhaotong as well. I've become friendly with the proprietor and a couple of the staff. Maybe later this spring I can prevail on them to let me make an expedition up into the hills to see the manufacturing process in operation. That would probably be fun.

 

In my (old and simple) neighborhood it's a common sight to see Muslim restaurants hanging their own home made ganba out front. Every now and then, one walks by and they are cutting up a hindquarter of beef right on the sidewalk. Occasionally I even see a fresh half of a cow hung from a frame.

 

I've been told they do it in plain view so passersby can note the high quality of their meat. Still, it's a sight that reminds me I am for sure not back in the US, where the health inspectors would immediately descend like a swarm of angry bees and animal rights activists would stage a protest and burn the shop down. 

 

 

 

 

The Qing Zhen 清真 restaurant is, as always in China, the one with the green sign. This conveys that the proprietors are Muslim and follow certain religious dietary rules.

 

As to balance between this strong meat and accompanying vegetables, they suggest eating it straight on its own instead of mixing it with other ingredients. I've had it that way in restaurants with friends and it works fine as long as you have plenty of other vegetable dishes alongside it. That's a more authentic way of using ganba 干巴 than the way I did it here at home when cooking for one.

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Here's the way I usually buy ganba 干巴, in a small chunk that I then shave into slivers 肉丝 at home. Combine with vegetables in a stir-fry, using it sparingly much like I might use cured ham/huotui/火腿。I think of it more as a condiment that as a serious source of protein.