Aromatic chilli beef noodle soup
Aromatic chilli beef noodle soup
I am so looking forward to beginning this section. It is long – a massive 17 recipes – but it also promises to be very enjoyable. Specifically, the recipes in this section seems slightly more complicated than some of the others I have tried, and therefore I’m sure that I can do them more justice than usual, as I have more free time at the moment than I know what to do with. My OH is a born carnivore and loves meat, especially beef and I have to say I do, too. I may or may not have mentioned this, but I grew up as a vegetarian for the first 13 or so years of my life, and so guiltily enough, there is nothing I like more, now, than sinking my teeth into a nice, juicy, bloody steak! We do cook with beef quite a bit at the flat; mainly in stir-fry, spaghetti bolognaises and of course, griddled steak. It will therefore be lovely to introduce more varied recipes into our weekly repertoire, and of course allows me to expand my own culinary skills.
This recipe itself seems to be the ideal starting place for this beef section, and I am really looking forward to beginning with it. To start with, I like all of the ingredients and some of them have a very special place in my heart, namely ginger. I have a real love for ginger and would happily find a way of incorporating it into anything that I make. But all of the ingredients in this soup seem lovely. In fact, this is so packed full of ingredients and flavour that it seems like a real treat to make and a hundred times divorced from a simple beef soup. Also, I have heard really good things about this recipe, not only from friends, but from fellow bloggers.
I told my OH about this and he thought it sounded wonderful. He has a particular penchant for Singapore fried rice from our local Chinese takeaway and therefore though that this rice – a mixture of egg fried rice with spices, prawns and Chinese roasted meat – would be a perfect accompaniment to this soup. Therefore, we are having a Chinese inspired meal on Sunday, consisting of aromatic chill beef noodle soup, Singapore fried rice and, of course, the obligatory prawn crackers.
This recipe, then, seems extremely special, and consists of beef stock, heated with a bunch of gorgeous aromatics – ginger, chilli, ground cinnamon, garlic – with egg noodles, sugar snap peas, chopped pak choi, with steak marinated in soy sauce, ground cinnamon, ginger, garlic and sugar, cut into diagonals and served on the top with chopped coriander. This sounds so good; I am hungry just thinking about it! As an aside, Nigella’s quantities are for 1, so I am doubling it for my OH and me.
Ingredients: There are a LOT of ingredients for this recipe. In fact, I have taken a picture to add to this blog, to demonstrate just how many there are. Most of them are to be found easily in any supermarket. Nigella says that real stock is best, but that one can use stock cubes if needs be. I actually found a foil wrapped fresh real beef stock from Tescos finest range, which was lovely. In fact, I did the rest of the shopping in Sainsburys, but couldn’t find anything as good, and as I remembered looking at this stock a while ago, I made a special trip to Tescos just for it. Nigella also mentions 120g steak. This, for anyone interested, translates into a 5 oz steak, which can be purchased from any butcher. I brought mine from Sainsburys meat counter. I explained to the butcher what I wanted to do with it, and he gave me two nice 5 oz rump steaks. I was a bit worried that I wouldn’t find sugar-snap peas and pak choi anywhere, but I managed to pick them up quite easily in Sainsburys. All of the other ingredients were also found very easily indeed.
I am so looking forward to beginning this section. It is long – a massive 17 recipes – but it also promises to be very enjoyable. Specifically, the recipes in this section seems slightly more complicated than some of the others I have tried, and therefore I’m sure that I can do them more justice than usual, as I have more free time at the moment than I know what to do with. My OH is a born carnivore and loves meat, especially beef and I have to say I do, too. I may or may not have mentioned this, but I grew up as a vegetarian for the first 13 or so years of my life, and so guiltily enough, there is nothing I like more, now, than sinking my teeth into a nice, juicy, bloody steak! We do cook with beef quite a bit at the flat; mainly in stir-fry, spaghetti bolognaises and of course, griddled steak. It will therefore be lovely to introduce more varied recipes into our weekly repertoire, and of course allows me to expand my own culinary skills.
This recipe itself seems to be the ideal starting place for this beef section, and I am really looking forward to beginning with it. To start with, I like all of the ingredients and some of them have a very special place in my heart, namely ginger. I have a real love for ginger and would happily find a way of incorporating it into anything that I make. But all of the ingredients in this soup seem lovely. In fact, this is so packed full of ingredients and flavour that it seems like a real treat to make and a hundred times divorced from a simple beef soup. Also, I have heard really good things about this recipe, not only from friends, but from fellow bloggers.
I told my OH about this and he thought it sounded wonderful. He has a particular penchant for Singapore fried rice from our local Chinese takeaway and therefore though that this rice – a mixture of egg fried rice with spices, prawns and Chinese roasted meat – would be a perfect accompaniment to this soup. Therefore, we are having a Chinese inspired meal on Sunday, consisting of aromatic chill beef noodle soup, Singapore fried rice and, of course, the obligatory prawn crackers.
This recipe, then, seems extremely special, and consists of beef stock, heated with a bunch of gorgeous aromatics – ginger, chilli, ground cinnamon, garlic – with egg noodles, sugar snap peas, chopped pak choi, with steak marinated in soy sauce, ground cinnamon, ginger, garlic and sugar, cut into diagonals and served on the top with chopped coriander. This sounds so good; I am hungry just thinking about it! As an aside, Nigella’s quantities are for 1, so I am doubling it for my OH and me.
Ingredients: There are a LOT of ingredients for this recipe. In fact, I have taken a picture to add to this blog, to demonstrate just how many there are. Most of them are to be found easily in any supermarket. Nigella says that real stock is best, but that one can use stock cubes if needs be. I actually found a foil wrapped fresh real beef stock from Tescos finest range, which was lovely. In fact, I did the rest of the shopping in Sainsburys, but couldn’t find anything as good, and as I remembered looking at this stock a while ago, I made a special trip to Tescos just for it. Nigella also mentions 120g steak. This, for anyone interested, translates into a 5 oz steak, which can be purchased from any butcher. I brought mine from Sainsburys meat counter. I explained to the butcher what I wanted to do with it, and he gave me two nice 5 oz rump steaks. I was a bit worried that I wouldn’t find sugar-snap peas and pak choi anywhere, but I managed to pick them up quite easily in Sainsburys. All of the other ingredients were also found very easily indeed.
Price: I did have quite a lot of the ingredients already, as I expect you will, too, as a lot of them are store cupboard favourites. Specifically, the egg noodles, stock, fresh ginger, steak, piri-piri sauce, sugar-snaps, pak choi and coriander totalled £10.48. I didn’t need to purchase dried chillies, ground cinnamon, garlic, soy sauce and sugar. This may seem expensive, but there was a lot of this soup from the quantities and I now have a massive pack of noodles, a giant piece of fresh ginger and a jar of piri-piri sauce.
Method: Although this was fiddly to make and there were a lot of stages, this certainly isn’t difficult or complicated to make. It really just a case of cooking the noodles, heating the stock with ginger, chilli, ground cinnamon and garlic, bringing this to the boil and then letting it simmer for a while; marinating the steak in soy sauce, cinnamon, ginger, garlic, sugar and piri-piri sauce for 30 minutes and then griddling the steaks for two minutes a side; re-heating the stock and stirring in chopped sugar-snaps, chopped pak choi and noodles and lastly cutting the steaks into thin diagonals and serving resplendently astride the soup with chopped coriander.
This was then, an easy recipe to make. There are a few points to remember, here. When marinating the beef, Nigella says to wipe all around the bowl with the steak, and I would certainly second that to make sure that the raw, spongy beef soaks up all of the precious marinade. Also, another thing to mention, Nigella says to sear the beef in a hot pan and then to turn the heat down and cook the steak for 2 minutes a side. I completely forgot to turn the heat down, and my steak was on the verge of burning before my OH cleverly caught it. Disaster averted, please learn from my mistake. Now, I don’t know if you’ve got any experience with pak choi, but I didn’t really. I’ve certainly heard of it, but never cooked with it myself, and so was unsure what exactly – the stalks or leaves – to chop up. I read the packet instructions and it suggested to chop up the stalks AND leaves. So therefore, I did, and chopped them up with clean scissors into little pieces. It may seem strange that there are so few methodological points to mention in such a long recipe, but this really was simple – albeit lengthy – to make.
This was then, an easy recipe to make. There are a few points to remember, here. When marinating the beef, Nigella says to wipe all around the bowl with the steak, and I would certainly second that to make sure that the raw, spongy beef soaks up all of the precious marinade. Also, another thing to mention, Nigella says to sear the beef in a hot pan and then to turn the heat down and cook the steak for 2 minutes a side. I completely forgot to turn the heat down, and my steak was on the verge of burning before my OH cleverly caught it. Disaster averted, please learn from my mistake. Now, I don’t know if you’ve got any experience with pak choi, but I didn’t really. I’ve certainly heard of it, but never cooked with it myself, and so was unsure what exactly – the stalks or leaves – to chop up. I read the packet instructions and it suggested to chop up the stalks AND leaves. So therefore, I did, and chopped them up with clean scissors into little pieces. It may seem strange that there are so few methodological points to mention in such a long recipe, but this really was simple – albeit lengthy – to make.
Result: I would have loved to love this, it has great ingredients and is a brilliant concept, but in reality I did not, unfortunately. Firstly, I thought that the noodle: soup ratio was all wrong. I thought that there were far too many noodles and not enough soup. In fact, I didn’t think it was reminiscent of soup with noodles in, but noodles in a light stock. I have eaten Chinese-inspired noodle soups before, (China town springs to mind, here), and so I do appreciate the idea, but nonetheless I still thought that there was just too many noodles in this soup. A second problem was that the stock was way, way, too dominated by the taste of ground cinnamon, and it completely overshadowed the other flavours. I used the exact quantities specified by Nigella. In fact, I even used a bit less, as I know how the taste of cinnamon can dominate other flavours. I certainly felt that the taste of cinnamon was far too strong, and in fact, the stock, to me, was more of a “cinnamon beef” stock. I wouldn’t have minded too much, but I really felt that it was such a waste of the other flavours used in the stock, such as the ginger and garlic.
However, there were many things that I did like about this recipe. I must say that the chilli in the stock was a good idea. It certainly gave the stock a fiery heat to it. The sugar-snaps were absolutely lovely; they were both sweet and delicate. In fact, I ate many of them as went along! I have never eaten pak choi before, but I thought that this was also nice.
I thought that the beef sliced into diagonals and placed over the top was inspired. The beef was cooked to perfection, just the way I like it. It was bloody in middle, to soak up all of the spicy juices from the soup. The beef marinade was delicious and I will definitely use this marinade again. The cinnamon was, perhaps, too strong in the beef marinade as well. However, I thought that it was certainly a great idea to serve griddled steak over soup.
The real indicator that I didn’t like this soup overly, I suppose, was that I just didn’t find that I was eating it as much as the Singapore rice and the prawn crackers. Even my OH left most of his. We both ate the steak on top with gusto, incidentally.
However, there were many things that I did like about this recipe. I must say that the chilli in the stock was a good idea. It certainly gave the stock a fiery heat to it. The sugar-snaps were absolutely lovely; they were both sweet and delicate. In fact, I ate many of them as went along! I have never eaten pak choi before, but I thought that this was also nice.
I thought that the beef sliced into diagonals and placed over the top was inspired. The beef was cooked to perfection, just the way I like it. It was bloody in middle, to soak up all of the spicy juices from the soup. The beef marinade was delicious and I will definitely use this marinade again. The cinnamon was, perhaps, too strong in the beef marinade as well. However, I thought that it was certainly a great idea to serve griddled steak over soup.
The real indicator that I didn’t like this soup overly, I suppose, was that I just didn’t find that I was eating it as much as the Singapore rice and the prawn crackers. Even my OH left most of his. We both ate the steak on top with gusto, incidentally.
Other person’s perspective: I asked my OH his perspective on this before I had told him mine, and his review was very similar. He said that unfortunately he did not like this soup very much. He did praise it by saying that the steak marinade was brilliant, and that we will certainly be using it again. It was chilli-hot and would be perfect for a barbeque. He, like me, thought that the stock was too dominated by the taste of cinnamon. He also said that there were too many noodles. My OH’s concluding remarks were that this soup is a great idea and concept, and it will be useful to use it as a blueprint for other things.
Future changes: The future changes are probably more than obvious, but to reiterate; I would halve the quantities of noodles, use no ground cinnamon in the stock whatsoever and use less ground cinnamon in the beef marinade. Along with the sugar-snap peas and the pak choi, I may also add bean sprouts, as both my OH and I love them. I don’t mean to present a totally negative review, as with these changes, I am sure that this would be absolutely gorgeous!
Rating: 3/5. Not awful, but so much needs to be changed, in our humble opinion.
Labels: Beef
