Home-made Chinese food too often focuses on stir fries to the exclusion of many more interesting methods and recipes. In my past life I got to travel in China, Taiwan and various Asian countries where the Chinese tended to dominate business (as they soon will around the world). A frequent favourite dish on those travels was variations on beef soup flavoured with star anise, the best being made with oxtail.
I have since found that a passable imitation can be made with leftover beef gravy (real gravy, not the stuff made with powder) or the juices from a beef stew. On Saturday we had one such, started as ever with a gently fried chopped onion, to which a finely chopped red chilli was added before the sieved juices of a stew from two days earlier were poured in and two whole star anise and a couple of big chunks of ginger were plopped in to simmer nicely for the best part of an hour (the few scraps of meat added at the last minute to avoid them going stringy along with a ready softened nest of noodles).
Not haute cuisine, but a good element of a Chinese meal that had the twin virtues of tasting great and costing next to nothing. Made with leftovers but there were no leftovers afterwards this time.
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