Beef Tendon and Drop Flank Stew (牛腩牛筋煲)

This is a traditional Cantonese dish.  It's delicious as a main dish.  It's also versatile as it makes a nice one-dish meal by coupling with steamed leafy vegetable and noodle (or rice).  Making this dish over the weekend makes dinner preparation quick and easy in the following work week.

1. Get a pound of beef tendon (牛筋) and have the butcher cut each tendon into smaller pieces.  Blanch for 2-3 minutes.  Note: It's pretty tough to cut beef tendon at home.
2. Get a pound of beef drop flank (牛腩).  Blanch for 2-3 minutes, and cut into bite size.
3. Place both the tendon and the drop flank into a large stew pot.  Add water to immerse the meat.
4. Add the following into the stew pot: 6-8 cloves of garlic (with skin taken off, crushed slightly with the flat side of a chef's knife, no need to cut), 2 stalks of green onion (cut into segments of 2"), 3-4 slices of ginger, Star Anise (2-3 pieces, 八角), Chinese Pepper (25-30 pieces, 花椒), Rice Wine (2 Tbsp), Soy Sauce (8 Tbsp, ~= Half Cup, half with dark soy sauce, 老抽)  Note- Soy Sauce provides the color and salt, no need to add salt at this point, season to taste, with salt, at the end (add 1/4 tsp a time).
5. Bring to boil and let simmer for 3 hours.  Taste to make sure the meat is soft and tender to your liking.  If not, add an hour and taste again.  Stir the content with a spatula or a pair of chopsticks every hour. 
6. At the end of stewing (after tasting for its tenderness) , add bite-size chunks of carrot (1-2 carrots) and turnip (half to one of medium to large turnip), mix evenly in the stewing pot and cook for half an hour.  At this point, the stew is ready to be served as a main dish.  This will remain fresh for at least a week when kept in the fridge.  A picture of the finished product is shown below
7. To make a meal out of this dish, steam some leafy vegetable in a small pot (for a minute or two, till the veggie is still green and firm, not shriveled and soft; I often use Bok Choy).  Cook some rice or noodle.  Heat up the cooked beef tendon and drop flank, and ladle large portions of the stew on top of the rice or noodle, add the steamed veggie on the side.  Now, a quick dinner is served!