How 烧 works inside 这个土豆烧牛肉香极了。？

Question

这个土豆烧牛肉香极了。

I've translated this sentence as This stew of potatos and beefs is extremely fragrant

Decomposing the original Chinese sentence, I got the following.

This potatoes stew(s) beefs fragrant extremely.

I've been confusing understanding how 烧 works in the original sentence. I mean that what grammatical structure is used with 烧 here.

What term(s) can be inserted so that I can fully understand the structure of the given original sentence?

Answer 1

Your question: How to understand the structure of the sentence 这个土豆烧牛肉香极了? What is the function of 烧 in 土豆烧牛肉, especially？

这个土豆烧牛肉香极了 = The dish of stew of beef with potatoes is extremely delicious.

土豆烧牛肉 is a noun (composite noun, or noun phrase) of a dish. It includes three parts, Complement + Verb + Object, where 烧 is the verb.

In Chinese grammar, it is very popular to form a composite word with the structure of Verb + Object. For example, 烧牛肉 (stew of beef)， 炸虾 (Fried shrimp).

This type of word formation is often with a complement that goes before the verb, Complement + Verb + Object. The complement can be a noun, an adjective, an adverb, or other words. For example,

土豆烧牛肉 = stew of beef with potatoes

红焖大虾 = Braised large shrimp in red oil.

砂锅炖豆腐 = Stewed Tofu in a pottery pot.

Answer 2

Here 土豆烧牛肉 is the name of a dish.

I would parse 土豆烧牛肉 as follows:

1. 烧牛肉, which is 牛肉 = "beef" which has been 烧 = "stewed", and
2. 土豆 = "potato", which is functioning as an adjective describing 烧牛肉.

(Realistically, the potatoes and beef are likely stewed together, but names of dishes are flexible.)

So you can think of 烧 as functioning as an adjective modifying 牛肉 = "beef", or think of 烧牛肉 = "stewed beef" as a noun.

The given sentence translates to something like:

这个土豆烧牛肉香极了。
This Stewed Beef with Potatoes is extremely fragrant.

But it sounds clunky in English; maybe more natural would be "This stew smells delicious."

This dish's name follows a similar pattern to many other dishes, such as:

• 牛肉炒拉面 = "Beef fried pulled noodles" (here 炒 modifies 拉面, and 牛肉 describes what kind of 炒拉面 it is);
• 猪肉白菜煎饺 = "Pork and cabbage fried dumplings" (here 煎 modifies 饺);
• 青椒土豆丝盖饭 = "green peppers and julienne potato on rice" (here 盖 modifies 饭).

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Also, 香极了 = "extremely fragrant"---it's not part of the name of the dish. This uses the 极了 grammar pattern. Here, [adj.] + 极了 just means "extremely [adj.]".

Answer 3

It means 烧土豆牛肉. Chinese is a language in which the rhythm of words is sometimes more important than correcting grammar, similar to poetry. in this example , it works very well here moving 烧 to middle of 土豆 and 牛肉. It gains a better rhythm but not confusing , since everyone knows you won't 烧（roast) 牛肉 by 土豆, you will only cook them together. I have listed some examples below that follow this pattern. Additionally, I suggest searching for these dish names on YouTube to see how they are cooked. This will help you better understand them.

• 猪肉炖粉条
• 豆腐焖鱼