Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup

As I mention earlier in my post, we don’t really have a real Asian market here. The closest one would be in Dallas about 5 to 6 hours drive, so the motivation to cook can be pretty limited too. That had recently changed since our little town finally had a real Chinese/Oriental Market. I was the first to check it out! Yes, that how excited I was. So as I was grabbing everything to put into my basket, I made my way to the cooler section and noticed the Taiwanese noodle. I nearly jumped for joy! I knew right away that I will make it this coming Sunday.
In all honestly, I never had this since I moved to Texas 5 years ago and just thinking about it made my mouth water. The blend of spices with the hot soup and oh so tender beef just compliments the chewy hands pulled noodle to perfection. This noodle soup is so soothing and delicious that it hard to any other noodle to compete with. It one of those noodle that once you have it, you’ll crave for more and more.

3 Pounds of beef shank cut into 2” inches pieces
5-6 Garlic cloves, slightly crushed
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 Tbsp sesame oil
3 Sliced gingers
5 Slightly crushed scallion, cut halved crosswise
1 Tsp Chinese five-spice powder
4 Star anise
½ Tsp of white pepper
1 Tbsp of beef soup base
½ Tsp of black pepper
1 Tsp of sea salt
4 Dried chilies
¼ Cup chile bean sauce
3 Tbsp of Shaoxing rice wine
2 Tbsp of rock sugar
½ Cup of soy sauce
3 Tbsp of dark soy sauce (add more for darker broth)
5 plus Quart of water

1 Bunch water crest or baby bok choy, broccoli flower
2 Package fresh hand pull Taiwanese noodle (find it in your Asian market)

1. Put all the ingredients together and bring to a hard boil.
2. Remove any scum on the top to make the soup clear.
3. Lower the heat to medium and cook for another 1 ½ hours or until beef shank is tender. If you put tendon in there cook the tendon ½ first.
4. When it done do not cover and let it sit for a couple of hours to fully absorb the flavor. Or make it overnight and refrigerated.
5. To serve, in another pot add water to almost full and bring it to boil. Cook noodle to package instruction.
6. Drain and add the vegetable and soup.

Enjoy.

Beef Kabob

For this Easter I forgo the traditional ham, lamp and turkey dinner for something that is exotic and closer to home and less complicated. So I decided to do an Asian B.B.Q. with beef and chicken kabob with all the dressing and herbs Khmer style. I grew up loving this beef stick because of it rich tasting and powerful aroma. There is no other beef kabob that can match it in taste or texture and I’ve tried many. Overall, if you into spices and herbs this is one dish you got try at least once. This is one of those dishes that can be used for multi-purposes. I made both chicken and beef with the same marination, but somehow the beef more flavorful and tender. It's great as sandwich meat, as an appetizer or even as the main dishes, whichever way it is just oh so good! Of course I used it as my main dish accompany by papaya salad and a couple of desserts. Simple yet very delicious and interesting to taste bud and everyone seem to love it too. I didn’t have any leftover for this Easter!

Ingredients:

1 Cup minced lemon grass
3 Dried chilies (soak in hot water for an hour until soften)
1 Tsp of turmeric powder
2 Tbsp of oyster sauce
2 Tbsp of fish sauce
¼ Tsp of kosher salt
¼ Cup kaffier lime leave minced
4 Garlic cloves
¼ Cup of coconut milk
2 Tbsp of vegetable oil
1 Tbsp of palm sugar or brown sugar
2 LB beef skirt

Methods:

1. Cut the beef skirt against the grain about 2 inchs long. Set aside.
2. Put all of the ingredients in the food processor and grind to fine.
3. Once it finely grinded poured the puree over the meat and let is sit for at least 6 hours or overnight for great flavor.
4. Soak the skewer in water for 30 minutes before you kabob them.
5. Cook beef for 5 minutes flipping every 2 minutes. For chicken kabob cook for 10 minutes or until done.

Thai Beef Jerky (Nua Sawan)

This is the perfect take snack for every occasion. You can never have enough of this, especially when it served with sticky rice and the tangy garlic vinegar sauce. This is one of the must have dish everything I do eat Thai food, because it just tasted so good with freshly cooked steam rich or sticky rice! Of course there the hardcore beer drinking that loves this as their finger snack.
Unlike the our American’s beef jerky where you just bit into it, this one you have to pull it in strand and it taste just heavenly this way. Great snack for on the go when you need to have pack some light food on a road trip.

Ingredients:

2 Pound of beef (using the chewing type such as chuck roast, beef sirloin) cut to long strip about 2” wide
2 Tbsp of minced garlic
3 Tbsp fish sauce
1 Tbsp of sugar
1 Tbsp of rice wine
½ Tsp of salt
1 Tbsp of black pepper
½ Tsp white pepper
1 Tbsp oyster sauce

Sauce:

1 Tbsp of sugar
2 Tbsp of white vinegar
2 Cloves of minced garlic

Mix and you have a sauce!

Methods:

1. Place the beef in a metal bowl and add the rest of the ingredients, fish sauce, salt, black pepper, white pepper and oyster sauce.
2. Message it thoroughly for a minute or so.
3. Now cover it up and refrigerated it overnight.
4. The next day, set your over to lowest setting possible and place the beef on top of a rack and keeping the oven door ajar and let it sit for 2 to 4 hours. Another option is to sun dried it if you have the right cover up and netting.
5. When it dry you can freeze the rest that not use.
6. To cook this just
7. heat enough hot to hot and cook for 5 minutes. Do not over cook or it will be burnt. After remove from the oil. Towel dry and slightly pound it so that it will be tender and not to hard when it cold.

Best serve hot. When it cold it tend to be teeth breaking and lost it true flavor.

Chinese Beef Stew

If you’re looking good home cooking beef stew for this cold winter months, look no farther for here a recipe that promise to warm you up. Nothing beats a good bowl of stew for comfort in such a dreary cold winter season. I love that the spices in this stew give this traditional beef stew a “kick” as often called by my husband. There not much to this recipe, except that it does required some time to cook it. Once it done, the beef and carrot just melts in your mouth. Excellent source of nutrients and flavorful favorite! Goes great with rice or noodle too.


Ingredients:

1 Pound of beef stew chunk cut into 2 inches cube
1 Pound of beef small intestine clean and cut into 2 inches length (optional)
6 Carrot cut into 2 inches length
½ Tsp of five spices
2 Tbsp of rice cooking wine
1 Tsp of black pepper
1 Tsp of white pepper
½ Tsp of kosher salt
½ Tbsp of dark soy sauce
2-4 Tbsp of soy sauce or to taste
2 Star anises
2 Tsp of brown sugar
4-6 Cup plus 4 Tbsp of water

Methods:

1. In a medium pot heat to hot then add the brown sugar and 4 Tbsp of water and stir in the wine, salt, soy sauce, dark soy, peppers, star anises, and five spices. Stir until it mixed well.
2. Add the beef and small intestine, stir for a couple of minutes or until it brown.
3. Now add the water and bring it to boil. Once you bring it to full boiling point, lower the heat to medium and let it shimmer for a good hour plus. Depending on how tender you want your beef to be, you can shimmer it to desire tenderness.
4. Now it you want to add some carrot, the time to do it right when the beef to add. Carrot taste best when it nice and tender in stew. The plus part about putting carrots is that it actually gives the natural sweetness to your soup.

Serve hot and enjoy!

Sa lor Ma Chiu Karung

I am not going to write a lot about this soup only that it is an exceptional Cambodian dish that I have ever learn to make. In the Khmer culture if you can cook this soup, then it meant you can cook! The reason being that it require some time to prepared the herbs and spices to get ready for this soup. Of course, once you got the basic herbs and spices down, you can most certainly cook most Khmer dishes due to it similar ingredients and methods.
Also I would like to add that even though the taste should be very sharp with it perfect harmony of sweet and sour, every family will have their version of meat and vegetable preferences. I do mine version by observing and trying many different kind before deciding that this is the flavor I set out to accomplished.
Overall, I like mine thick and with lots of chewy texture meat and tendon. Sometime I would add beef tripe too, to make it taste super yummy. Mostly importantly bold and sharp is the word to best describe the flavor of this soup.



Ingredients:

1 Lb beef stew meat cut into cube
½ Lb beef tendon cut into thumb size pieces
½ Cup grind lemon grass (about 6 to 8 whole)
½ Tsp of turemic powder or small thumb size fresh one, grind
¼ Cup fish sauce
1 Tbsp of vegetable oil
1 Tsp kosher salt
1 Tbsp of oyster sauce
2 Tbsp of chicken soup flavor powder
4 Clove garlic
4 Jalapeno
1 Handful of morning glory cut three time.
1/2 Cup kaffir lime leaves grind
2 Tbsp of tamarind soup flavor powder
1 Winter melon gourd
6 Round Asian egg plants
1 Cup celery sliced diagonally
Water

Methods:

1. Clean and cut the beef and tendon, set aside in refrigerator.
2. Finely cut the lemon grass, lime leaves, fresh galaga, garlic, fresh termine and put in the grinder and grind until fine and almost paste like. If using the dry version, put in the grinder to blend too.
3. Heat a 5 quarts pot to hot. Add the vegetable oil to hot. Add the herb mixture, oyster sauce, fish sauce, salt and stir until lightly golden.
4. Add the meat and tendon and enough water to cover the meat.
5. Bring it to boil and turn to heat to medium and let it shimmer until tender. I let mine sit for 1 hour and 20 minutes, because you want the tendon to tender but not over cook the meat.
6. Ten minutes before it done, add the whole jalapeno, slice celery, melon and egg plant and shimmer.
7. When the vegetable is semi, add the morning glory and turn off and remove from the stove. Don’t overcooked the vegetable, because it will continue to cook even if remove from heat when it in soup form.

Beef Loc Lak

I made this a month or so ago and didn’t have a chance to post it up. This is not a hard dish to make, but it is very yummy and good for you. Great way to incorporated vegetable and eggs into your kids balance diet. Well as you know by now, that most of the dish that I made are very common to different Asian culture. For the recipe tend to circulate around and around to different region of Asia and every culture adapted it as their own, with some slight changes.

There not much to give you advice on, only that don’t overcook the beef or it will become chewy, unless you used rib eyes steak. In all it is a very simple and dish to make, so don’t worry, you can’t make any mistake as long as you don’t burn it.


Ingredients:

1 Lb Rib eyes beef stead or beef sirlon
2 Tbsp of soy sauce
½ Tsp of dark soy sauce
1 Tbsp oyster sauce
1 Tsp of black pepper
½ Tsp of kosher salt
¼ Cup of corn starch
1 Tbsp of minced garlic
4 Eggs
2 Tbsp of vegetable oil
2 Tomato, thinly sliced
1 Head of red lettuce, clean
1 Medium onion, thinly sliced

Dipping Sauce:

2 Tbsp of lime juice
1 Tsp of white pepper
1 Tsp of salt

Mix well and set aside.

Methods:

1. Clean and cut into 1” cube. Mix in the corn starch and let it set for 15 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, arrange the plate as shown in the picture above, with lettuce, sliced tomato and sliced onion.
3. Now heat the skillet to hot add 1 tbsp of oil. Wait for a couple of seconds, add the minced garlic until aroma.
4. Add the beef, oyster, dark soy sauce, soy sauce, pepper and salt. Stir until cook, about 5 minutes plus.
5. When the beef is done, scope in and place it on top of the decorated plate.
6. In another clean pan, heat to hot and add the remaining oil. When it hot add the four eggs and cook it to desire. Normally, it prefer that the inside it a little runny. Remove and place on top of the beef.

Mongolian Beef

Ok, for my Sunday birthday dinner I decided that I wanted to stay home for Chinese food. And Mongolian beef was the second dish I came up with since I have bought some nice thick pieces of rib eyes. I was craving something spicy and sweet and this was the perfect dish with that combination. It is a very easy dish to make, but a little advance preparation required. Meaning you have to soak the beef in corn starch 10 minutes in advance. This is very important, because it makes the beef tender inside and crispy outside. Then come to think about it, you can do that while making the sjavascript:void(0)auce. Ok, so I lied. It doesn’t really required much preparation time, it you done it right. Regardless, the outcome is sooo good! So good that my nephew practically hogged the whole dish to himself!



Ingredients:

1 Lb of beef sliced into strips
1 Medium onion cut into small strip
4 Scallion cut diagonally
1 Tbsp of garlic minced
2 Tbsp of vegetable
½ Cup of soy sauce (or to taste)
½ Tsp of dark soy sauce
¼ Cup of brown sugar (or to taste)
1 tsp of red pepper flake
¼ Cup of corn starch
A couple dash of white pepper

Methods:

1. Mix the beef with the corn starch and set aside for 10 minutes. Heat your flyer up.
2. In a hot wok add the oil and bring to hot.
3. Add the garlic and stir until golden brown and aroma.
4. Now add the soy sauce, brown sugar, red pepper flake and bring to boil. Lower the heat to medium and shimmer for at least 3 minutes or until thicken.
5. Now add the beef into the hot flyer and cook for 2 to 3 minutes. Remove and towel dry.
6. Bring to sauce to boil again and add the onion, cook for 2 minutes.
7. Then add the beef, dark soy sauce and stirred for another 1 minute or until the sauce is almost completely reduced and caramelized.
8. Lastly, add the scallion and toss a couple of time.
9. Remove and give a couple of dash of white pepper. Serve.

Korean B.B.Q

Yum..Yum…just typing this give me the craving for Korean B.B.Q again. Maybe I will make it again this Sunday! Anyway, this is a very easy dish to prepare, but the cooking part is a bit tedious and messy. What I meant by that is the grilling, splattering of grease, the cleaning the grill process. Good thing I have a rule in my household. I cook and the kids clean. So that will take the load of the whole ordeal of cleaning afterward. Plus this way I enjoy cooking all the more and they get to eat more wonderful dishes. That I nice trade off, wouldn’t you think?

Ok, back to the recipe. Now this recipe is what you would consider starting from scratch. If you don’t have the time or don’t want all the hassle, well here a tip for you, just use the ready bottle Korean B.B.Q version called bobbique sauce. The only tiny problem is that sometime depending on the brand it doesn’t always taste as good. Well it isn’t for me and I end up adding the oyster sauce, fish sauce and some rice wine to make it more flavorful. And it actually turned out pretty good. I only do this when I don’t have a lot of time in my hand or not enough ingredients in my pantry. So don’t be afraid to experiment a little. You’ll never know, you might find your family recipe to pass down for generations to come. That how I got most of mine recipes is through trails and errors….lots of errors..






Ingredients:

1 Lb boneless beef short rib precut into strip
2 Tbsp garlic
2 Tbsp black pepper
½ Tsp salt
2 Tbsp sesame oil
1 Tbsp oyster sauce
2 Tbsp fish sauce (optional)
11/2 Cup water
1 Cup soy sauce
1/2 Cup sugar
1 Onion grated

Garnish:

1 Onion sliced and separate rings
½ Stick butter cut into cube
1 Head red leaf lettuce

Dipping Sauce:

¼ Cup low sodium soy sauce
1 Tbsp rice vinegar
½ Minced chili sauce
1 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp minced scallion

Combined all items together and you’ll have your dipping sauce.

Methods:

1. Grind the onion by using a blender.
2. In a mixing bowl add all the ingredients together. Set aside.
3. Cut the beef in half if desire and mix with the sauce.
4. Cover it up and let it sit overnight in the refrigerator. It more flavorful this way.
5. Next day, drain the water completely.
6. Heat the grill to hot and add the butter to coat and melt the grill.
7. Add the beef to cook for a few minutes on each side.

Serve with steam rice and kimchi. I like to wrap mine in lettuce an kimchi with beef in between and dip in my special dipping sauce like shown above.

Spicy Hot Basil Fried Rice (Kao Pad Kar Pao)

One of my favorite Thai fried rice is this Kar Pao flavor. Basically it just hot basil fried rice. This flavor also taste great as a stir fried base with seafood and meat. It also awesome with fried Thai flat noodle too. I will get into that recipe later on, when I have time to make it. As for the spiciness, you can make it more spicy by adding more chilies and jalapeno. I love it super spicy, whether it fried rice, fried noodle or in the stir fried. I normally put 14 chilies and 4 jalapenos, because for me Thai food has to be bold and spicy taste to it or it wouldn’t be called Thai food. Also it good to remember that with most Asian food garlic and chilies is their essential ingredient that makes a difference in taste and the outcome of the dishes.

As with any good fried rice, the rice makes the difference. So when you do want to make it, make sure to cook the rice at 4 to 5 hours in advance. Or even over night would be even better. To cool it down leaved it in the refrigerator.

Ingredients:

3 Cups cook jasmine rice
1 Cup beef slice
½ Tsp of kosher salt
2 Tbsp of vegetable oil
1 Tbsp of minced garlic
2 Jalapeno sliced diagonally (optional, very spicy)
8-12 Thai chilies minced
1 Cup hot basil (also known as holy basil)
2 Tbsp fish sauce
1-2 Tbsp of dark soy sauce
1 Tbsp oyster sauce
1 Tbsp sugar syrup (sugar thicken with water, if you regular sugar about 1-2 Tbsp)
2 Dashes of white pepper
1 Large tomato cut into 8 pieces
1 Egg white
1 Tsp of corn starch
1/8 Cup water + 1 Tbsp

Methods:


1. Cut beef 1/8 thick against the grain. Message the beef with the egg white and corn starch. Let it sit for at least 30 minutes.
2. When the half an hour done. Heat the wok to hot and add the oil until it heat up.
3. Stir in the minced garlic and minced Thai chilies until slightly golden and aroma.
4. Stir in the beef, salt, sugar, oyster sauce, 1 tablespoon of water and cook for 2 to 3 minutes until beef almost fully cook.
5. Add the rice and carefully press down on it to separate it.
6. Then soften it by adding the water and mix well.
7. Then add the sliced jalapeno, dark soy sauce, fish sauce and mix so that the rice will be completely cover with the dark soy sauce and turn brownish coloring.
8. Add the tomato and toss lightly a couple times.
9. When it done toss in the hot basil and toss once more.

Remove and give a couple of dash of white pepper. Serve.

Beef and Shrimp Chow Mein

Here another dishes that you can always find in your pantry. Well at least the noodle part and at least at my house. My pantry is stuffed. And by stuffed I mean like no room to walk stuffed. Lol So I like to be prepared. Can you blame me? Well anyway, I saw this in my pantry and I thought of making some good old comforting chow mein.

It quick and easy and super filling late night snack. There something about this noodle that is hard for me to resist. I love how combination of soy sauce and garlic make this noodle so enjoyable. This is one of those dishes that every Chinese fast food carried and they all have their own version and taste. Of course noodle is like rice to Asian people, every dishes neither accompany with steam rice or mein. Hi in carb with oh so worth it.
And if you’re used to eating this way, no other carb will do!

By the way, I like my food bold and sharp. Some who eat bland, will think that it too salty, but that just our difference in taste bud. So feel free to added or subtract any measurement on the sauce part. And another point I like to make is that dark soy sauce it more for look than flavor. It gives the meat or noodle dish browning color, making it look tasty and enticing. This is my must have ingredients, because I like to make my food look edible and not white or bland looking. I truly believed that if the food looks good, the message that it will send to your brain is that it taste good!



Ingredients:

1 Package dried or fresh noodle
1 Cup of cabbage sliced
½ Cup of yellow onions
½ cup of scallion sliced
1 Tbsp of minced garlic
1 Tbsp oyster sauce
1 Tbsp of rice wine
2 Tbsp of soy sauce ( or to taste)
2 Tbsp of dark soy sauce
½ Tsp of kosher salt
3 Dash of white pepper
1 Tbsp of corn starch
1 Tbsp of oil
1 Tbsp of sesame oil
1 Cup of rib eyes beef sliced
12 Shrimps clean and peel
½ Bunch of cilantro (life savor, make it smell nice)
1 Egg white

Methods:

* Soak and message the beef in the half of the corn starch and pinch of salt and half of the egg white and set aside for at least 1 hour. Do the same for the shrimp for the remaining cornstarch and egg white.

1. Bring water to boil and add the noodle, cook for 8 minute or until prefer texture.
2. Drain and set aside.
3. Put both vegetable oil and sesame oil in the wok heat to hot.
4. Add the minced garlic until slightly light brown. Add the onion until slightly brown.
5. Add the beef and stir in the soy sauce, salt, a bit of the dark soy sauce, oyster sauce and rice wine. Cook until brown and done.
6. Now add the cabbage and stir well until cook, about 2 minutes max..Too long will be over cook. You want it crunchy but cook.
7. Add in the noodle and cook for another 2 minutes or so then add the scallion and cilantro and remove from the hot stove.
8. Lastly, give 3 dash of white pepper for the nice spicy smell.

Served and enjoy!