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| | Gkuay Dtiow Neau Nahm Khon A Recipe of Kasma Loha-unchit | |
More Recipes Cooking Classes Thai Cookbooks Food Articles Ingredients for Beef Noodle Soup
Stewed Beef Soup:
Hot Chile Sauce:
Place the whole beef shank and all the herbs, spices and flavor ingredients in a large pot. Add water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer covered until the shank is tender (3+ hours). Remove shank and strain the broth. Slice into bite-size chunks and return to strained broth. While the beef is stewing, prepare the hot sauce. Pound the chopped chiles and garlic to a paste with a mortar and pestle. Combine with the remaining sauce ingredients and let sit to allow the flavors to blend and mingle. Sauce should be equally sour and salty with a hint of sweetness. Separate the noodles as much as possible into single strands. Make the fried garlic oil and prepare the remaining ingredients. When the soup is ready, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Toss the beef meat balls into the pot and while it is cooking, use a Chinese wire-mesh basket with a bamboo handle to blanch the noodles, bean sprouts and lettuce for just a few seconds - a handful at a time, enough for one serving. Lift basket to drain quickly. Place in an individual serving-size bowl and spoon a few pieces of stewed beef and broth over the noodles. Next, blanch a few pieces of the sliced steak in the hot water using the wire-mesh basket, just enough to cook to medium rare. Arrange beef slices over the noodles and spoon one or more pieces of meat balls into the bowl. Sprinkle with green onions, dust with white pepper and top with fried garlic oil (both garlic pieces and a little oil) and cilantro. Repeat to make more bowls of noodles. Serve immediately with the chile sauce. Makes 8-10 servings. Kasma's Notes and Pointers for Beef Noodle Soup:Each Southeast Asian culture has its favorite noodle dishes. The Vietnamese are fond of their "pho, " the Thai of their "kuay tiow reua" ("boat noodles"), and the Malaysians their "laksa." These noodle dishes share similar roots - they are Chinese in origin, introduced by immigrants from different parts of China who settled in the region several generations ago. Their descendants continue to run the noodle shops that abound in many Southeast Asian cities, or hawk countless bowls from push-cart stalls and paddle boats, adding color and aroma to the sidewalks and canals of the Orient. The common origin explains why many noodle dishes of different Southeast Asian cultures are suspiciously similar in look and taste. This certainly is true of beef noodle soup. The Vietnamese "pho" is not much different from the Thai "kuay tiow reua, " or the Cantonese beef noodles you get in Chinatown noodle shops. There are essentially two kinds of beef noodle soup – one with clearer broth and a cleaner taste and the other with a darker, richer and heartier broth. The latter is what I prefer for the colder seasons of the year because of its warming qualities. I like to stew the beef for my noodle soup with a multitude of herbs and spices, adding a fragrant aroma that is not only inviting to the appetite but turns the concoction into something of a preventative medicinal broth. And because a good, hearty broth is produced by simmering the beef over very low heat for a number of hours, the making of it warms and perfumes the home just as much as the finished soup is warming to the tummy and the soul. Asians like a variety of textures in their food and prefer to stew beef that is laced with tendons. Well-tenderized tendons give a contrasting gelatinous texture to the chewier meat. Many westerners are leery about eating tendon; they often mistake it for fat and think it is bad for their health. Yet, they do not realize that this same tendon is the basic stuff that jello is made out of, and it certainly is not fatty. For my stewed beef soup, I like to use a whole shank because it is attached by large tendons to the muscles and bone. It is readily available from Asian markets with a meat counter. I simmer it whole until the entire shank is tender. This takes about three to four hours. The slower the cooking, the sweeter and more flavorful the broth. For further contrast of texture and flavor, tripe may be added to the stewing pot. Fresh steak slices, lightly cooked to medium rare, and beef meat balls also frequently accompany the stewed beef on the noodles. The latter is available in the refrigerated compartments of Asian markets. They have a similar elastic texture to fish balls, but are a darker grayish color. The favorite noodles served in beef soup is fresh rice noodles - the same kind used for Chinese "chow fun." Available in most Asian markets, they come in dense two-pound packages. Be sure to separate the noodles into individual strands before using, or else you will have one big lump in your soup. The soup is served with bean sprouts and lettuce either already wilted in the broth, or separately on a side dish for dunking into the soup as each person wishes. The Vietnamese like to add sprigs of mint and basil to the side dish for bites of refreshing herbal flavors. Finally, each partaker at a noodle meal can spice the soup any way he or she wishes with chile sauces, fish sauce and other condiments laid out on the table. Bottled sauces, such as Chinese chile sauce with garlic or Sriracha hot sauce, are available from most Asian stores. I prefer to make my own with fresh chiles as in the recipe that follows. Recipe Copyright © 1997 Kasma Loha-unchit. A version of this article originally appeared in the San Jose Mercury News. 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