Taiwanese beef noodle soup (紅燒牛肉麵)

taiwanese braised beef noodle soup

I made Taiwanese braised beef noodle soup for the second time with a modified recipe and actually managed to jot down my changes this time.  This time, I eliminated the use of a pre-packaged 滷包 — basically the Chinese version of a herb sachet (I am forgetting the phrase for this, a bouquet garni? too lazy to verify this right now) made with dried Chinese spices.  Instead I just added the actual spices that are commonly found (and that I like) in the pre-packaged Chinese sachet so that I can control exactly what is going into that broth.

I also made use of my Fagor multi-cooker by first cooking the beef tendon in the pressure cooker and the slow cooking the whole thing using the slow cooker function.  You can of course just cook the whole thing on stovetop over low heat if you want — the main point here is that the tendon takes much longer to cook than the beef shank/shin so I would cook it for 40 minutes more.

Ingredients:

Beef shank/shin (牛腱) or you can use beef stew meat/beef chunk roast/beef short ribs), 1 lb;
green onions/scallions, 3-4 stalks;
ginger, 4-5 slices;
garlic, 3-4 cloves;
thai chili peppers, 2-3, seeds removed;
1 tomato, cut into quarters;
1 yellow onion, peeled and cut into quarters;
1 carrot;
Chinese chili sauce (辣椒醬), 1 tsp;
Taiwanese bullhead bbq/satay sauce (沙茶醬), 2 tbsp;
spicy Chinese soy-bean paste sauce (辣豆瓣醬), 3 tbsp;
soy sauce (about 1.5 cup);
water (to cover, I believe the ratio of soy sauce to water I had was about 1 to 9 but don’t count me on this — will verify);
rice wine, 2 tbsp;
Chinese star anise, 2-3 pieces;
dry orange peel, 1-2 pieces

1. Bring pot of water to a boil and blanch tendon and beef shank. Then immediately chill in ice water to stop the cooking process.
2. Heat bottom of another pot — add oil — throw in ginger slices, green onion stalks, thai chili peppers, garlic — cook on medium high until fragrant
3. throw in tomato, carrot, onions — cook until onions are soft.
4. add in spicy bean paste, taiwanese bbq sauce, chinese chili sauce, pour in soy sauce — cook for a minute or two
5. deglaze bottom of pot with cooking wine. throw in tendon and shank.
6. cover with water.
7. Bring pot to boil and simmer for 2-3 hours, until beef shank and tendon are soft.
8. Strain the broth (alternatively, you can put everything but the beef shank and tendon, onion, carrot and tomato into sachets.  You can pick out the onion, carrot and tomato after.
9. Skim the broth.  This is critical. I did this 3 times.
10. Slice the beef and tendons into cubes or slices, depending on what you prefer.
11. Cook noodles in another pot. add. garnish with lots of green onions.

If I have time later this weekend i am going to take photos of the sauces I am referring to so everyone knows what I am talking about…but omg, delicious.

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