Hong Kong Beef Brisket Noodle Soup – one of the dishes that reminds me of my travel. Hong Kong has been a huge part of me because my grandparents and aunts live there. Love the country and especially the food!
When the first time I tried it, I told myself that I need to figure out how to make this. But I was a kid and Google wasn’t available yet. So I tried to rely on my palette to actually found out what’s in it.
Years later in my adulthood, I Googled it and read all the available recipes online. But it looks so complicated cause it’s not that easy to find dried herbs and Chinese spices in Melbourne. So I stick with my own version, less aromatic spices but still deliver the complex flavour for sure.
For the beef cut, I always use beef brisket cause it’s fattier and it’s very important to choose the fattier cut. Because we have to cook it for a long time, we don’t want to dry out the beef. But you can always replace it with beef chuck or oyster blade cut. Depending on where you live, beef chuck and oyster blades are easily found in the local supermarket such as Coles and Woolworth. But for the beef brisket, you might need to go to your local butcher.
Now, let’s get started!
Hong Kong Beef Brisket Noodle Soup
Equipment
- Cloth: Cheese Cloth / Teh Tarik Cloth / Tea Cloth
- Large Saucepan / Soup Pot
Ingredients
- 4 pcs Star Anises
- 10 pcs Cloves
- 2 pcs Cinnamon Sticks
- 5 pcs Bay Leaves
- 10 pcs Dried Cardamoms
- 12 cups Water
- 500 gr Beef Brisket cut into large chunks
- 2 slices Ginger
- 2 pcs Spring Onion with the white and green parts separated
- 6 cloves Garlic Smashed with skin intact
- 3 tbsp Olive Oil
- 3 tbsp Blackbean Sweet Soy Sauce
- 1 tbsp Soy Sauce
- 1 tsp Salt
- 1 pack Egg Noodles
- 1 bunch Bok Choy
- 2 pcs Daikon cut into large dice
- 6 pcs Dried Hong Kong Shitake Mushroom soak in hot water then slice it into 3 part
Instructions
- Fill up the cloth with all the aromatics ingredients. (star anise, cinnamon stick, cardamom, cloves, and bay leaves) – set aside
- Then, fill up the soup pot with 12 cups of water and ring to a boil.
- Add beef brisket and 2 slices of ginger. Cook for a few more minutes.
- When you see some foam floating on the top of the water, skim it off. You don't want these impurities from the beef. It will make the soup cloudy. Turn off the heat – set aside
- Get another soup pot or large saucepan. Pour olive oil, stir fry the white parts of spring onions, and some garlic with medium heat. Cook until fragrant and slightly seared.
- Grad the beef soup, pour into the spring onion and garlic pan. Add both soy sauces and stir well.
- Add the cloth filled aromatic spices, daikon and shitake. Turn the heat down to low and simmer up to 90 minutes or until the beef is tender and the broth is tasty.
- After 90 minutes, remove the aromatic cloth, and adjust the flavour with a little bit of salt or mushroom stock.
- Then, cook the noodle according to the package instruction and blanch the bok choy in the noodle water.
- Serve the noodle, alongside with bok choy and grab a spoonful of beef brisket broth into the bowl. Garnish with the green part of the spring onion.
Some Hong Kong restaurants will serve Hong Kong Beef Brisket Noodle Soup with daikon or carrots (mostly daikon). Personally, I added Shitake Mushroom which is very unusual, but I truly enjoy the flavour!
For this recipe, I use egg noodle because I think it tastes better than rice noodles. Egg noodle is very tricky to cook, it could get overcook easily. If you are not familiar with cooking egg noodles, feel free to use rice noodles instead.
That’s it! Very simple indeed. For more Hong Kong or Asian recipe, click here. Best of luck!
