Chinese Beef Stew

This dish was surprisingly successful. The recipe was inspired by this youtube video (warning: the audio is terrible), but I modified it a bit to save time.

Ingredients:
1.5 to 2 lbs of beef cubes for stewing
4-5 inch chunk of ginger, washed and sliced
2 onions, sliced
1 head of garlic, peeled (whole cloves)
4-5 carrots, peeled and cut into pieces
12-15 (or however many you like) turnips, peeled and cut into pieces (halves or thirds, depending on how big they are)
1 can diced or whole tomatoes
Chinese cooking rice wine (see image)
soy sauce
chili sauce (the red kind with seeds in it)
Chinese spice pack (see image below--you'll have to go to a Chinese grocery store to find it. Unless you read Chinese, I suggest that you copy down the characters on the package and show it to someone who works there. That will probably be easier than trying to find it on your own. I'm telling you, it's well worth the hassle.)


Directions:
1- Saute the ginger in some oil until fragrant.
2- Add half of the sliced onions and cook until translucent.
3- Add the beef cubes and cook until browned.
4- Add the rest of the onions and the whole cloves of garlic.
5- Add a dash of soy sauce (don't add too much soy sauce, you can always add more later) and a few dashes of rice wine ("glug glug glug").
6- Add the canned tomatoes, carrots, and turnips; stir.
7- Add enough water to cover everything. (This only works if you are using a deep and large pan--I have one that's similar in shape to the one used in the youtube video but a bit bigger. If you don't have such a pan, transfer everything to a pot or, better yet, slow cooker before adding the tomatoes, carrots, and turnips.)
8- Put one bag of spice pack into the water--the spice packs look like big tea bags, and they work just like tea bags. You put them in the water and let them steep. But make sure that they are properly immersed since they have a tendency to float.
9- Bring water to a boil; cover and simmer. (I added a bit more rice wine right before I covered the pot, this time "glug glug.")
10- Taste the broth after about 30 min. If you find that one spice pack wasn't enough, you can throw another one in there. With the kind I got, one "tea bag" was enough. You can also add more soy sauce or some salt if necessary. My spice pack must have been salted or something because the broth was plenty salty and flavorful and I really didn't add much soy sauce at all.
11- Cook for another 1-2 hours or until meat is tender.