Beef and Celery with Sha Cha Sauce 沙茶芹菜炒牛肉 (shā chá qín cài chǎo nǐu ròu) is a traditional Chaoshan homestyle dish. Chaoshan is a cultural region that includes the cities Chaozhou, Jieyang and Shantou in Guangdong province. You can find Sha Cha sauce in Chaoshan cuisine, in hot pot for soups and for dipping meats. But we also use them in stir-fries in Chaoshan and Taiwanese dishes which is less known to most people.
Sha Cha Sauce is a spinoff of Malaysian Satay Sauce. Large numbers of Chaoshan people migrated to Malaysia starting in the 1700’s. They adapted to the foods in Malaysia and also introduced their foods to the locals. Eventually, some migrants went back to China and brought satay sauce with them. They changed a few things, possibly due to availability of ingredients, and made it their own. They wrote the Malay name, “satay” as “沙茶 “ in Chinese. In Chaoshan dialect, “沙茶 “ sounds like “sa de” and in Putonghua (or Mandarin), it sounds like “shā chá. So, Satay and Sha Cha are actually the same thing, just different dialects. It’s actually a good thing that the names are different, otherwise, it would be even more confusing. In general, "satay" typically refers to the Malaysian Satay sauce and "Sha Cha" refers to the spinoff Chinese version.
What is in Sha Cha Sauce? There are different versions of it with slight variations. Some are sweeter and some are saltier. By and large, it really depends on the brand. My favourite brand is Bull Head from Taiwan. The main ingredients are dried lizard fish, dried shrimp, garlic, shallot, sesame, chili powder, coconut powder, ginger and oil. I like that it’s not as salty as other brands so I have better control of the salt content when I use it. Satay sauce, on the other hand has coconut cream, lemongrass, sugar and more spices.
In my Beef and Celery with Sha Cha Sauce 沙茶芹菜炒牛肉 recipe, I’ll show you how beef is traditionally velveted without using baking soda. I find that baking soda changes the texture of the beef and leaves it with little to no beef flavour. I have provided detail steps on how to marinate the beef to make it soft, smooth and full of flavour. This dish can be served with rice, congee, or noodles. You can even stir-fry it with your favourite noodles. This is a quick, easy, nutritious and delicious dish!
Love Sha Cha Sauce? Try this popular Hong Kong café recipe: Hong Kong Satay Beef Noodles 沙爹牛肉麵
Beef and Celery with Sha Cha Sauce 沙茶芹菜炒牛肉
Ingredients
- 300 g Flank steak , thin sliced
- 250 g Celery
- 1 Large shallot , minced
- 3 cloves Garlic , chopped
- 2 stalks Green onions
- 1 Chili
- 1 tbsp Shaoxing wine
- ½ tsp Sugar
- 2 tbsp Sha Cha Sauce (aka Chinese barbeque sauce)
- 1 tsp Light soy sauce (depending on salt content of Sha Cha Sauce)
- 2 tbsp Oil
Ingredients for marinade:
- 2 tbsp Water
- 2 tsp Potato starch
- 1 tsp Light soy sauce
- ½ tsp Dark soy sauce
- ½ tsp Sugar
- ⅛ tsp White pepper powder
- ⅛ tsp Garlic powder
- 1 tsp Sesame oil
Instructions
- Slice beef against the grain into 2-3mm slices and put them into a mixing bowl
I butterflied each slice to make each slice of beef larger 
- Add 1 tbsp water, 1 tsp light soy sauce, ½ tsp dark soy sauce, ½ tsp sugar, ⅛ tsp white pepper powder, ⅛ tsp garlic powder and mix well with your hand. Squeeze the beef slightly so that it absorbs all the water
- Add 1 more tbsp water to the beef and continue mixing and squeezing until all the water is absorbed
- Add 2 tsp potato starch. Mix and squeeze until mixed well and starch is no longer white
- Add 1 tsp sesame oil and mix well. Set aside to marinate for 30 minutes
- Slice celery to your desired length and shape
- Mince shallots, chop garlic and cut chili
- Cut green onions to your desired length. Separate the white parts of the onions from the green parts
- In a hot wok, using high heat, add 2 tbsp oil. Use a spatula to move the oil around the wok to prevent sticking
- Loosen and mix the beef one last time and add to the wok
If you have any water unabsorbed by the beef, pour it out before putting everything into the wok. It can cause a lot of oil splatter and your beef will not come out tender - Arrange beef in single layer and let cook for 40 seconds (if beef is thicker than 3mm, then cook for 1 minute)
- Flip beef over and fry for another 30 seconds. Remove beef from wok and turn down heat to medium
- Use the leftover oil to fry the shallots, garlic, and the whites of the green onions.
If there was no oil remaining from frying the beef, then add 1 tbsp oil - Make a well in the centre of the wok and add 2 tbsp Sha Cha Sauce and ½ tsp sugar. Fry for 1 minute and turn heat to medium-high
- Add celery and stir-fry until your desired doneness (crispiness of the celery).
I stir-fry the celery for approx. 2 minutes so that the celery is slightly wilted but still has some crispiness - Turn heat to high, add beef and the rest of the green onions. Add 1 tbsp Shaoxing wine around the wok edge so that the wine can slide down to the bottom of the wok
- Stir-fry everything together for 1 minute
- Add chilis and mix well
- Serve
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