Bastard

Featured in Apartamento Cookbook #9: SANDIWCHES!, illustrated by Orfeo Tagiuri.

‘Husband and wife lung slices’ is a famous cold Sichuan dish you’ll see in all Sichuan restaurants; it’s beef and tripe slices in a spicy and mouth-numbing sauce. This dish started in the ‘30s with a couple using cheaper beef offcuts. Guests called it 烩片 (‘braised slices’) or 废片 (‘wasted piece’), but neither made for a beautiful dish name, so it became 夫妻肺片 (‘husband and wife lung slices’). The actual dish does not have lung slices, only beef tripe and beef shank, but we make it with multiple different cuts, along with heart, intestine, lung, and tendons to up the texture level, braised in our special master stock. For the Chinese chilli oil with flakes, our all-time favourite is Lao Gan Ma, but we recommend not using the black bean version—use ‘chilli crunch’ style. 

METHOD (Serves 1)

For the master stock, mix all ingredients together in a stock pot, bring to boil, lower the heat to simmer for 1 hour, and cool. For the master-stock-braised meats and offal, first cut into even chunks. Each cut of meat requires a different time for slow cooking, but each cut should be braised until tender (but not falling apart): for example, beef lung and intestine, 1 hour; beef shank and honeycomb tripe, 1.5 hours; beef tongue and cheek, 2 hours; beef tendons 2.5–3 hours. We suggest cooking meats and offal separately; as the master stock is needed for vinaigrette, you should use the one from cooking just meat, unless you like strong, funky flavour (if so, welcome to the club). For the Sichuan spicy vinaigrette, mix all ingredients together and set aside. To assemble the sandwich, slice the bread, preferably to 2cm thickness. This sandwich can be toasted or untoasted, but if you prefer toasted, brush the bread with butter and toast only on the buttered side, so that one side stays soft and other gets caramelised and crispy. In a small mixing bowl add sliced meats, Chinese celery, half of the spring onions and half of the coriander, season moderately with Sichuan vinaigrette and check on taste, if necessary, add more dressing. Place bread on your chopping board, toasted side up. Using chopsticks (to leave surplus of the dressing in the bowl), place mixed cuts and herbs on one slice of bread, then cover with another slice. Press the sides of the sandwich together, so it helps seal everything inside. Cut sando in half and turn, so you can see the cross section facing up. Garnish with remaining spring onion and coriander leaves, finish with crushed toasted peanuts, and voila!