Taiwanese Beef Noodles

Nothing beats a hot bowl of spicy noodles when the weather turns cool. And I have never met anyone who doesn’t enjoy Taiwanese beef noodles, which happens to be my home country’s national dish. The smell of the spicy broth always reminds me of a Taipei night market on a cold winter night. It is believed that beef noodles were brought to Taiwan by Chinese Nationalist Party soldiers from Mainland China when Chiang Kai Shek and his Kuomintang army fled to Taiwan after Wold War II. There is actually a street in Taipei called the “beef noodle street” where you can find all kinds of noodle shops originally founded by retired KMT solders. Each one seems to claim to be the original one. This week I would like to share with you my own recipe for the famous Taiwanese beef noodles.

You will need:

Ingredients:

1 lb. beef shank
5 scallions
1 inch chunk ginger (about 1½ Tbsp.)
5 cloves garlic
1 onion
1 tomato
2 dried hot peppers
2 ~ 3 carrots
3 Tbsp. vegetable oil
2 Tbsp. cooking wine
5 Tbsp. soy sauce
1 beef bouillon cube
1 tsp. chili paste
1½ tsp. granulated sugar
½ cinnamon stick
5 cloves
¼ tsp. fennel seeds
2 star anise
½ tsp. Szechuan peppercorn
1 bay leaf
a pinch five spice
salt and pepper
3½ cups water
3 ~ 4 servings noodle or pasta
handful of bok choy or cabbage (optional)

Directions:
Cut the beef shank into large cubes and season it lightly with salt and pepper. Bring 1 Tbsp. vegetable oil up to high heat in a heavy pot. Sear the beef shank cubes until they have a brown coating (about 1 minute), then take them out of the pot.

Cut 4 scallions into strips and slice the ginger and garlic cloves. In the same pot on high heat, toss in a scallion, ginger, garlic and the dried hot peppers along with the remaining 2 Tbsp. vegetable oil and 1 Tbsp. soy sauce. Cook for one minute, then de-glaze the pot with 2 Tbsp. cooking wine along with the cinnamon stick, cloves, star anise, bay leaf, fennel seeds, Szechuan peppercorn and a pinch of Chinese five spice. If you don’t have all of the spices, you can also just substitute them with an extra 1/3 tsp. Chinese five spice.

Now stir in the carrots, onion, tomato and the remaining scallions, which are all cut in to big chunks. Place the beef back into the pot and add in the remaining 4 Tbsp. soy sauce, 3½ cups water and chili paste. Bring it up to a steady simmer and turn the heat down to low. Cover it up and let slowly cook for 1.5 hour.

Blanch a handful of greens of your choice and cook the noodles right before the broth is ready to serve. In the past, I’ve also substituted the Chinese noodles with pasta noodles, which tastes just as good. Or you can also check out http://thewayriceshouldbe.blogspot.com/2015/12/homemade-noodles.html for my homemade noodle recipe.

Serve the soup and beef over the noodles and enjoy it while it’s warm!

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