Spicy Braised Beef Soup with Hot Bean Paste

Serves 4

I found this recipe on the Rockpool website – I assume it is sourced from Spice Temple.

It is a wonderful and really fresh dish, though spend some time making sure you track down the right pastes. There are dozens and dozens and at the Chinese grocer I went to, they said they had little knowledge of the Korean pastes other than whether they were used in soups or not.

The reason I say to take care is that you want this soup’s spice level dialled to 11; it’s the reason this dish is so good.

Ingredients
700gm piece beef brisket, trimmed
1 star anise
1 tsp Szechuan peppercorns
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 cinnamon quill
4 tbsp vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, finely sliced
1 tsp finely chopped ginger
2 spring onions, finely sliced into rounds
2 tbsp Korean fermented hot chilli bean paste (gochujang)
2 tbsp Chinese soybean paste (huang jing)
1 tbsp Shaoxing wine
¼ cup light soy sauce
1 tbsp castor sugar
160gm fresh Shanghai noodles
3 Chinese cabbage leaves
1 long red chilli, finely sliced
Handful coriander leaveshandful coriander leaves

Method

1. Place the beef in a pot covered with plenty of cold water and bring to the boil; when the scum rises, remove the beef and rinse. Cut beef into 2cm pieces.
2. Dry-roast the spices in a pan for 4-5 mins until fragrant, Allow to cool and wrap in a tied muslin cloth.
3. In a large pot, put in the beef, spices (in the muslin cloth) and 2 ½ litres; bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 2 hours. Lift out the beef and the spice bag and reserve including the stock.
4. Heat oil to hot in a large wok. Stir-fry the garlic, ginger, and spring-onions for 1 minute. Add both the bean pastes and fry until fragrant.
5. Deglaze with Shaoxing wine, then season with the soy and sugar. Check seasoning.
6. Add the beef and spice bag and 1 ¼ litres of the beef stock; bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes.
7. Cook the noodles until al dente; 8 – 10 minutes or according to instructions; I doubled the amount of noodle though this does change the dish to more of a noodle dish than a soup.
8. Remove the spice bag from the wok and discard; dice the cabbage leaves into 3cm pieces and blanch for a minute in the stock; add the noodles to heat through.
9. Ladle the soup into four large bowls and garnish with the chilli and coriander.