Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Food, Cooking, and Game Preparation Need a Simple Chinese Brown Sauce Recipe

Big fan of chinese food. Have tried things at home and just cannot get a sauce right. Looking for a nice light sauce like you would get with beef and broccoli,beef Cantonese, beef peapods, etc.. Not a glumpy brown gravy from low end house of kitty chinese restaurant. I like garlic,sesame oil maybe a touch of ginger as some of the flavors. Thinking oyster sauce as main component. Appreciate any tried and true ideas. Thanks.

just off the top of my head, I'd say you need a strained beef broth, cornstarch, and whatever flavorings you choose. Ginger, some sugar, garlic and maybe some soy sauce. No reason the oyster sauce could not be in there too.
I would not want a lot of particulate matter floating around in the sauce, so after thickening with the corn starch, I'd probably put it through a fine mesh sieve.

double post

If you are going to start with oyster sauce, just buy a bottle of Soy Vay teriyaki sauce. much better than anything you'll make in my opinion. They also have other sauces but I haven't tried them as the teriyaki is so good. Different than any other teriyaki I've had

I'm with Sam. That's exactly how I would do it.

Still awaiting a recipe as I'm a big fan of Chinese even though most take-out just kills me but I keep going back for more intestinal distress.

Have Imodium will travel ! ROR !

Cornstarch or arrowroot. I prefer the later for asian sauces.

A guy I worked with long ago made great Chinese food. He always used arrowroot. He also would coat the meat in baking soda for a couple hours before rinsing and cooking.

If Yen can cook….then so can YOU!!

Martin Yan

Big fan of Yan when his show was televised. Remember his mastery of the cleaver ? WOW !

Definitely the most used tool at my cutting board. Versatile.Great steel but almost brittle so stay away from bones. BTDT.Can be honed to shaving sharp.

I was a big fan of his too. My mom got me a Martin Yan wok and cleaver. Don't know what happened to the wok, but still have the cleaver.

I was alway impressed at how thin he could slice ingridients. And he was always happy!!!!

Sorry, I mispelled your name Yan.

I was watching his show, "Taste of Vietnam", over last summer in Idaho. Fun show as usual.

Teriyaki leans to the sweet side. Like it on chicken. On beef or venison I want something more savory leaning. I have tried numerous bottled sauces. They have all been very one note salty, sweet, garlic etc. A good restaurant sauce has hints of various flavors but nothing is in your face.

It would seem simple enough stock, soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, ginger,garlic corn starch to thicken. Be damned if I can get even close to even a mediocre version of a chinese brown sauce.

Yan demonstrated how each sauce is made along with the dish. Therefore, once you stir fry the beef, there is color from that which blends into the stir fried veggies, then there is color from the oyster flavor sauce or a splash of light soya. I'm not aware of Chinese beef stock, but have always used chicken stock, made in the Chinese style of course.

If you google, of all things, beef with broccoli, might get an idea. Otherwise, buy some Wok With Yan books.