Braised beef noodle soup

Chinese pickled cabbage can be bought canned from Asian grocers. It has a sour pickled flavour like sauerkraut.

This recipe is by Chef Jeff Wu, who has been in New Zealand promoting Taiwan (how better than through food), and I have adapted it for the Kiwi kitchen. It's a classic and easy to make. Some of the ingredients might not be familiar, but I found them easily at my local Chinese shop (with the help of a few Google pages on my phone shown to the helpful staff — people are always interested in you when you are interested in their food). Read more from Ray on Taiwan and it's recipes.

Ingredients

3 ½ Tbsp	Vegetable oil
1	Garlic clove, thinly sliced
1 piece	Ginger, 3cm, finely diced
3	Spring onions, thinly sliced
1 small	Onion, thinly sliced
2	Tomatoes, cut into wedges
1 ½ kgs	Beef short ribs, sawn (by your butcher) into 5cm pieces (Main)
1 tsp	Szechuan peppercorn
3	Star anise pods
1 small	Cinnamon stick
2	Bay leaves
6 Tbsp	Sugar
175 ml	Naturally brewed soy sauce
1 Tbsp	Chilli bean sauce
4 Tbsp	Shao Xing Chinese rice cooking wine
¼ tsp	Ground white pepper
1 Ltr	Beef stock
400 g	Chinese wheat noodles (Main)
4	Baby bok choy, halved lengthways
½ cup	Chinese cabbage, canned
1 small handful	Coriander sprigs

Directions

1. Heat 3 tablespoons of the oil in a wok and add the garlic, ginger, 2 of the spring onions, onion and the tomatoes. Stir-fry 2 minutes then add the beef. Stir-fry until the beef is coloured all over. Add the Szechuan peppercorns, star anise, cinnamon stick, bay leaf, sugar, soy sauce, chilli bean sauce, rice wine and white pepper. Add enough water to cover, bring to the boil and simmer 45 minutes to 2 hours or until the beef is tender.
2. Add beef stock, mix well and heat through.
3. Meanwhile just before the beef is ready, boil the noodles in plenty of water until al dente, drain and reserve.
4. Steam the bok choy until just tender but still crisp. Reserve.
5. Heat the remaining oil in a frying pan and stir-fry the cabbage for 1 minute. Reserve.
6. Serve the beef with the noodles and bok choy in bowls. Pour the broth on top. Sprinkle the other spring onion, the cabbage and coriander on top and serve.

More of Ray's Taiwanese recipes

• Golden fried prawns
• Taiwanese stir-fried chicken