Ingredients:

1.  Beef stew meat (about one pound). Or any beef meat, better with a little bit tendons or 筋. 整個都是瘦肉也可以, 但會像吃cardboard, 比較乾、硬. Supermarket should have packs like this. If no beef stew, ask the butcher what he recommends for beef stew. One pound meat will serve about 2-3 servings. 

 

2.  Leafy veggie. Spinach, green lettuce(Roman lettuce，etc. ), any green leafy vegetable will do. 買一把或兩把包裝, 每餐約可用半把. 

 

3.  Some carrots. Cut about 1 inch in length. Be careful, the carrots are round, don’t cut yourself if it rolls. Green onion(chopped fine) if you like it. Two tomatoes(diced or sliced) is good to add, too. 

 

4. You can make it spicy according to your liking. So, clean a couple of jalapeños. Seeds are hot and spicy. You can scrape out some seeds to make it more tolerable. 

 

5.  Noodles. if you don't find any Chinese type, spaghetti will serve fine also. 每餐約a handful's grasp of the dry noodles.

 

6.  Of course, I assume you have soy bean sauce, sugar, salt, cooking wine…

 

Process:

1.  Boil a pot of water enough to cover all the meat. 

 

2.  Chop the meat to about 1 or 1 ½ inch-cube size. When the water is boiling. drop in(be careful~don’t burn yourself) the meat. Wait until the meat turns color, drain the water and add in fresh water not only to cover the meat but a little bit more. Don’t worry. You can add water any time you want if it’s not enough for the soup. However, add at least 1 inch more of water above the meat because you will need to add carrots later and more water will cook the carrots better. 

 

3.  When the water boils again, use a big soup server to scrape out the dirty stuff on top of the water, (be careful, don’t burn yourself. if it’s too hot, turn the heat low or turn it off to scoop out the dirty stuff on top of the soup a couple of times). Then turn the heat to medium, cover the lid and slowly cook the meat for a while. If you cover the lid, you need to watch at side to avoid the soup bursts out. Cover the lid half way if it boils again. Slowly add 3 tablespoon soy sauce, 2 tablespoon cooking wine and 1 tablespoon sugar(3-2-1). 

 

4.  You can add diced tomatoes when you turn the heat to medium and let the meat and tomatoes cook at the same time. The tomatoes will add more flavor to the soup. Jalapeños can be added at this time as well. 

 

5.  About 30 minutes later, you can add in chopped carrots. Carrots will make the soup sweeter. 

 

6.  While the meat is cooking. wash your green vegetables and chop it to the size you want. 

 

7.  After another 30 minutes, poke the meat and see if they are tender enough. Meat with tendons will need more time to cook. You should check the tendons to see if it’s soft. Add more water if the soup volume lowers to reveal the meat. Normally, you would like to have soup with the meat. But too much water will dilute the flavor. What to trade off depends on your judgment. 

 

8.  When you consider the volume is quite right for you and it’s cooking properly, test the soup flavor to see if it’s too light or too salty. The sauce I have you add in this recipe is not too salty. So, you can add bit by bit of salt to the flavor you want. Don’t put in salt too much at once. You will have no remedy for that. Little by little, it will come to what you want. Don’t add any more soy sauce here. Too much sauce will not be good flavor.  Basically, we use it to brown the color of meat (紅燒). That’s all from it. 

 

9.   If the meat is soft, the carrots’re tender, and the soup yummy, you are done with 牛肉麵. 

 

10.   Boil another pot of water (enough to cook your noodles). 

 

11.  When the water boils, spread in the noodles. Stir it a little/occasionally so it won’t stick together. Have some water standby. If the water boils out of control, add in more cold water will solve the panicky hazard. Turn the heat down will also help. Test your noodle by taking one noodle out and bend it. If the center still has bright white color, it’s not fully cooked. When it’s fully cooked, its color is a little bit different. But don’t over cook it. It will be hard to get the 又軟又爛的麵糊 out of the pot. 

 

12.  Put your noodle in the bowl, drop the green veggie to the boiling water you just used to cook the noodles. Get it out when it turns color/or the water boils again. 

 

13.  Need I tell you more what to do? Scoop the meat and soup over your bowl of noodles, turn on the TV and enjoy your meal.

 

14.  Next time, you want to reheat the soup, just use microwave oven and repeat the process of 10 to 12 for the noodles. 

 

Any conclusion, discussion or comment, please let me know. 

 

Mom

 

P.S. I will talk more when you have 牛肉麵leftover and you are sick of eating the same dish of 牛肉麵.

PSS. There are many ways to prepare this dish. Some eople stir fry the meat first. some add in Bean paste sauce. You can add with variation of whatever you fancied.