Kachin Pounded Beef with Herbs

This is one of the most unusual and delicious dishes I have ever come across. The beef is first cooked in a little water, then briefly fried to firm it up, and finally is lightly pounded to blend the herbed flavor paste into it. It sounds complicated, but it’s easy. The flavor paste includes Sichuan peppercorns, a reminder that China and Kachin State share a long border, and that there’s been trade across it for centuries. In Myitkyina, people told me that they refer to Sichuan pepper as Ka