牛肉(niú ròu) - beef in Mandarin

牛肉 (niúròu) is "beef", from 牛 (niú), "cow, cattle", and 肉 (ròu), "meat". Chinese builds most meat names this way, animal plus 肉 (ròu), so once you know the animal words you can generate the meat words for free.

It is central to a string of well-known dishes: 牛肉面 (niúròumiàn), "beef noodles", is arguably China's most famous noodle dish internationally, and 红烧牛肉 (hóngshāo niúròu), "red-braised beef", is a classic home-style stew.

One quirk worth flagging: 肉 (ròu) alone, with no animal specified, defaults to pork in everyday Chinese cooking vocabulary in many regions, precisely because pork is the default meat. Beef always needs the 牛 (niú) to be explicit, unlike in English where "meat" is genuinely ambiguous.