Sichuan style red braised beef noodle soup-spicy!

Another food made with the lengendary Sichuan peppercorn - the signature ingredient in the Sichuan style spicy food! Besides, to make the red braised beef, I also added a couple of star anise, as shown above, for more fragrance and richer taste.

This is a very common diner food and home food in Sichuan. Because of the hot and humid climate, people adopted spicy food to help get sweat out. Also spicy food enhances metabolism, that's why people from Sichuan tend to be slimmer, although it's the so called food paradise of China. I grew up eating all those delicious food without appreciation until I left my hometown and country to a completely different place. I still remember I used to claim my love of steak and pizza , and such exotic western foods to my peers. Living in U.S.for years made me realize that I might be adaptive to the English language, the pop culture, the western lifestyle, but my stomach is the most stubborn part. Only the Chinese food that I grew up eating comforts it. That's how I started cooking and trying to replicate what I ate as as kid. Cooking is therefore my way of curing homesickness.

Sichuan style red braised beef noodle soup

Red braised beef recipe

Ingredients:

1 pound beef for stewing, preferrably with some fat for juiciness
5 cm piece of fresh ginger

2 cloves of garlic
2 spring onions

2 tbsp cooking oil

3 tbsp chili bean paste
3 cup beef/game stock
4 tbsp cooking rice wine
1/2 Cup soy sauce
2 tsp whole Sichuan pepper
2 star anise

1 tbsp brown sugar

salt to taste

Steps:

1. Blanch the beef in boiling water for a minute or two until scum has risen to the surface, then remove the meat and rinse it under the tap. Cut the beef into 1-2 inch chunks. Crush the ginger slightly. Cut the spring onions into 2 or 3 sections. Slice the garlic.

2. Heat the oil in a flat-bottomed saucepan over a medium heat. When it is hot, add the chili bean paste and stir-fry for about 30 seconds until the oil is red and richly fragrant. Add the beef, the ginger, the garlic, the spring onions, and the spices and keep stir frying for about 1 minute. Add the stock, soy sauce, sugar and wine.

3. Bring the liquid to boil, skim if necessary, then turn the heat down and simmer gently until the beef is beautifully tender. This will depend on which cut of beef you are using, but it should be at least 2 hours. (if using a crockpot, longer) Before turning off heat, add salt to taste.

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To make soft yolk eggs and noodle

Add water into a deep saucepan, enough to submerge eggs. Place eggs in the pan and  turn on heat. Turn off heat when water starts boiling and cover the lid to let the steam keep cooking the eggs for 3 minutes. Drain hot water and submerge eggs in cold water until completely cooled down. 

Cook one bundle of buckwheat noodle as direction, about 3 minutes after water boiling. Drain the noodle immediately and serve with braised beef and its sauce, as long as egg halves and pea tendrils (also called pea shoots, are the leafy, tender stem portion of young pea plants) or cilantro.