Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup
The no.1 must-try Taiwanese cuisine for tourists, now you can make it at home! Hearty soy sauce based beef soup with braised tender beef, loads of veggies, and a kick of chinese spices. The ultimate comfort food to make on a cozy weekend or for a joyful dinner gathering at home!
Ingredients
- 500 g Beef Any beef with some fat is fine. I usually get the supermarket Suppenfleisch.
- Noodles Taiwanese ribbon noodles, japanese dried udon noodles or any whilte looking wheat noodles
Aromatics
- 1 small Onion
- 20 gram Ginger approx. thumb size
- 3 stalks Green Onion 1 stalk for the thick kind
- 3 cloves Garlic
- 1 Red Chilli optional
Condiment
- 2 Tbsp Oil
- 3 Tbsp Douban Sauce aka doubanjian, touban, chilli bean sauce
- 6 Tbsp Soy Sauce = 90 ml
- 1/2 Tbsp Sugar optional
- 5 Tbsp Tomato Puree or 1 fresh tomato
- 2-3 Tbsp Cooking Rice Wine optional, you can use Taiwanese Rice Wine, Japanese Sake, German Korn, or just water
Spices (Optional, there's no need to have everything. Just use what you can find. Some asian markets also have ready-made spice bag.)
- an empty spice bag or tea bag
- 1 Bay Leaf
- 1 Star Anis
- 3 cm Cinnamon Stick
- 1 tsp Fennel Seeds
- 1 tsp Sichuan Pepper Corns
- 1 tsp Clove
Vegetable
- 2 Carrots approx. 200g
- half Daikon Reddish approx. 200g
Instructions
Prep the ingredients
- Speparate the greens and whites of 3 stalks Green Onion. Cut the white to long piece (for broth) and thinly slice the greens to very small tiny bits of rings. (see picture below) Cut 1 small Onion into big cubes, 20 gram Ginger into thin slices. Peel and smash 3 cloves Garlic and optionally slice 1 Red Chilli open to remove the seeds .
- Chop up 2 Carrots and half Daikon Reddish into bite size cubes.
- Cut 500 g Beef into large chunks, making sure to cut against the grain—they’ll shrink quite a bit when cooked.
- Place all the spices (1 Bay Leaf, 1 Star Anis, 3 cm Cinnamon Stick, 1 tsp Fennel Seeds, 1 tsp Sichuan Pepper Corns, 1 tsp Clove) in an empty spice bag.
- Optional: If you're using a whole tomato instead of puree, score a cross on the bottom, boil it in hot water for a few seconds, and peel off the skin. Then cut the tomato into big chunks.
Cooking
- Heat 2 Tbsp Oil (or more) in a pot over medium-high heat. Sear the beef until some parts are lightly browned. Don't cook it all the way through. Do this in batches if your pot is small. If you crowd the pan, it will get watery and it's difficult to develop the browning.
- Add the aromatics (onion, garlic, green onion, ginger, chili) and stir-fry until the onion turns slightly transparent and softens. Take the beef out first if the pot is too crowded.
- Add 2-3 Tbsp Cooking Rice Wine or some splashes of water to deglaze the pot. Then mix in 3 Tbsp Douban Sauce, 6 Tbsp Soy Sauce, and 1/2 Tbsp Sugar.
- When the sauce starts to thicken and smells amazing, stir in the 5 Tbsp Tomato Puree and let it cook down until it thickens slightly.
- Pour in just enough water to cover all the beef and bring it to a boil. Be careful not to add too much—too much water will dilute the broth and make it harder for the beef to absorb flavor.
- Add spice bag to the pot simmer the soup on low heat for 1.5 hour.
- After an hour, remove the spice bag, ginger, chilli skin, and large chunks of spring onion. Add the radish and carrot chunks. Pour in just enough water to cover everything, then let it simmer for another hour or until the beef is super tender.
- While the soup is simmering, boil your Noodles. Just prepare the portion you are going to serve and always prep fresh ones before servings because it would get soggy in the soup.
- Taste the soup and adjust the saltiness by adding more water, soy sauce, or salt as needed. I usually would need at least a cup of water and a tsp of salt.
- To serve, combine the soup with the noodles and optionally garnish with thinly sliced green onions.
- Enjoy!
Notes
- You can find pre-made spice bag for beef in some asian markets like this one.
- I usually get the japanese dry udon noodles or the taiwanese ribbon noodles to pair with the soup. You can also make a thicker version of this soup and add some corn starch water to make it like a gravy and pair with rice.
- The douban sauce is sometimes labeled differently as doubanjian or toban. The one I have is the Lee Kum Kee Chilli Bean Sauce. I wouldn't have know it is douban sauce, if it doesn't have the Chinese translation on it.