Der Stroganoff

From America's Test Kitchen


Ingredients

3/4 lb of beef stew meat
1 lb pack of wide egg noodles
12 oz sliced mushrooms
1 medium chopped onion (it's under the mushrooms...)
1 can Chicken Broth
1 can Beef Broth
1 small pack (8oz?) sour cream
1/4 cup brandy (not pictured)
Salt, Pepper, cooking oil





Equipment: Wooden spoon, large skillet. A large skillet is key in that you won't have to brown the meat in batches.

Cut the beef stew chunks to a more uniform size. How small is up to you but the smaller you do the less you have to cook to get it tender. I cut them into about 1/2" cubes.

Pat beef dry with a paper towel and toss with a sprinkle of salt and pepper.

Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a large skillet on high. Dump the meat in and keep it on high. Ensure that the meat is getting to brown and not overcrowd and steam. Otherwise, you may want to brown the meat in batches. You want them brown bits on the pan for flavor. Remove the beef.

While still on high heat, dump the mushrooms and onions. Season with a bit of salt and pepper. This is more to draw out the liquids as the broths are salty enough. Cover for a couple minutes for them to steam themselves.

At this point there should be enough liquid to scrape up all the brown bits in the pan. Do so with a wooden spoon. Cook uncovered to let the liquid reduce out as the onions and mushrooms cook, about 10 minutes. Add brandy and let that cook out.

Dump in the broths and add the meat back in. Bring to a boil and simmer for about an hour. Prepare about a cup of warm water on the side.


Now it's time to add the noodles. Just dump the whole bag in. I don't really care about overcooked egg noodles so I think this method's just fine. Stir in to get as much noodles as you can in the liquid.

Let simmer covered for about 2 minutes and fold the top less cooked noodles in. Simmer for another 2 minutes. Repeat this process until the noodles are fully cooked. If you don't think you have enough water, add a bit of that warm water.

Remove from heat, stir in sour cream. Serve in the skillet.

St. Louis Restaurants have Shitty Eggplant Parm

So St. Louis Italian food is pretty weak. On top of that, they have some pretty shitty eggplant parm. So here's yet another thing that you should consider just making at home.

Really good eggplant parm is greasy crap with cheese and sauce. The fact that it's vegetarian's just a way to keep people happy.

Oh wait... this recipe was based off the "How to Cook Everything" book that the Lady supposedly bought for herself to learn how to cook food...

Ingredients:

2 Medium Eggplants
Flour
3 cups - shredded Cheese - I just get whatever "Italian Mix" is on sale. You can be all fancy and get mozzarella (for the inside) and parmesan (for the crusty topping) but I'm too cheap for that.
Fresh Basil

2 cups Tomato Sauce:
http://urbandrivel.blogspot.com/2007/10/marinara-sauce-americas-test-kitchen.html

Notice how this is sort of similar to the zuppa di clams recipe... it's no coincidence, folks.

Optional Super Robust Stuff
16oz sliced Mushrooms
Crushed Garlic (lots)

Slice the eggplant thin, like a 1/4 inch thing. You can trim some of the skin off but that's supposedly the healthy part. Salt both sides with coarse salt and drain in a colander for 30 minutes or so. Rinse and squeeze dry with a paper towel. (My mom was like don't throw the paper towel away! You can still use it! We did. :P)

Heat up olive oil in a large skillet/pan to medium heat. Dredge eggplant slices in flour and brown both sides, about 3-4 minutes a side. Drain on something (like those air dried paper towels from earlier... :P). Add black pepper as they cook (remember that the eggplant's already been pretty salted.)

Super unhealthy optional delicious thing to do:

So after going through all that eggplant, you now have a boat load of brown floury goodness. Hopefully, none of it is burnt... you can get rid of that. Toss in shrooms and garlic, season with salt and pepper, and saute. Set aside.

In a baking dish, spoon the sauce to just coat the bottom. Layer down eggplant, cheese, basil, shrooms, cheese, and repeat with the last being cheese. Don't let your structure touch the edges, pour the remaining sauce around the edges. Your thing won't be stuck to the pan that way.

Bake in oven for 20-30 minutes. Mince some basil on top and serve with any of the remaining sauce.

Zuppa di clams - redux

So after boat loads of iterations I've finally come to a recipe that I think will be THE recipe for clams from me - it's essentially using a tip from America's Test Kitchen for the tomato sauce:

24 Clams
1/4 cup red wine
12 olives (or more or less depending how much you like them)
3 tablespoons olive juice (the stuff the olives have been sitting in... I pretty much take as much juice as I can from the bottle so that there's still enough left to leave the rest of the olives submerged)
1 tablespoon capers (I didn't rinse these.)
1 28oz can whole tomatoes
1 Shallot - minced
2 cloves garlic - minced

Preparing the tomatoes - seed and strain the tomatoes and remove center green parts. Leaving too many seeds in there can make it bitter. Try to leave the tomato meat in as whole a piece as possible. Diced seeded tomatoes may work just as well but I didn't like the texture as much. Reserve about 1/2 cup of the tomato juice.

Big deep stainless steel skillet (or anything... just not nonstick.): sweat the shallots, garlic, and capers. No need for salt.

Turn the heat up to medium-high to high. Add the tomatoes. They should be strained enough so that they start leaving a fond (brown bits) on the skillet. After a tomatoes stop steaming up for a while, add the red wine to scrape up all the brown bits until the tomatoes are getting sticky.

Dump in the clams, olives, olive juice, and tomato juice. Cover.

Stir periodically to let clams open. It's done when all the clams are open. Serve with bread for dipping.

Back with a vengeance

Macaroni and Ham Soup: My roommate in college used to make a heaping crap load of mac and chop up a huge thing of ham so there'd be individual bowls of mac, ham, and green onion. Roomies and neighbors would just spoon the individual ingredients into their bowls and season to taste. For people who would like measurements, here some some guesstimates for 3 servings.

Ingredients:
8oz uncooked macaroni
1 cup cubed ham
2 green onions, chopped
2 cans of chicken broth s
esame oil (about 1 tspn per serving) w
hite pepper

Cook the macaroni per instructions and heat the chicken broth (microwave or on stovetop... whatever). In a bowl, top the macaroni with ham, green onion and pour in chicken broth. Add white pepper to taste. Let sit to cool off for about a minute to let flavors meld.

Rack of Lamb

Recipe
Continental

2 frenched racks of lamb (they usually come in packs of 2)
1 pack of fresh mint (1/4 cup?)
1 pack of rosemary (1/4 cup again?)
Salt 2 tablespoons?
Pepper 1 tablespoon?
4 cloves garlic
1 cup Olive Oil

2 cups Madeira Wine (The cheap stuff is fine...)

Throw all spices/herbs into a blender/food processor and start blending into a paste, gradually adding the olive oil so that it forms a paste. Brush onto the lamb.

Preheat oven to 200 degrees.

Set pan on high heat and sear all 4 sides of the lamb and place on a roasting rack and stick one (through the small side) with a meat thermometer. Roast in oven until internal temp reaches 140 degrees... about 3-4 hours.

While roasting:
In the searing pan reduce whine on low heat until about a half cup is left, whisking the burnt yummies into the sauce. salt to taste. You can run it through a strainer to get the gunk out but they taste good :)

Remove from oven and transfer to a cutting board or someting and cover with tin foil and let sit for 15 minutes.

Cut and drizzle sauce over it.

Yay.

Clams in Tomato Sauce

Recipe
Italian

2 Dozen Clams... any shellfish, really...
1 can of your favorite marinara sauce (Trader Joe's is awesome)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon capers, rinsed.
2 shallots, chopped
4 cloves garlic, crushed and chopped
8 green stuffed olives (less or more depending on how much you like the stuff)
1/4 cup white cooking wine.
salt and pepper to taste

In the biggest/deepest sauce pan that you have, heat oil to medium heat. Saute shallots, garlic, olives, and capers until shallots and garlic brouwn. Add the clams , and cooking wine. When all the clams fully open, remove the clams and set aside. Add marinara sauce and stir. Cover and simmer for 20-30 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in clams.

Serve with pasta or bread.

If you want an even more seafoody taste you can add clam juice.

Shrimp Cocktail

Topic: Recipe
Type: Continental

From Alton Brown's Good Eats

The thing about shrimp cocktail is that you need shrimp that has no preservatives in it. Usually these are sold in 5 pound blocks.

If you don't have a seafood place to buy shrimp with no preservatives and stuff, the Tiger shrimp at Sam's is pretty good, but you'll find one or two shrimp that aren't that great. The trick is to rinse the shrimp while defrosting so that when the ice melts, the preservatives don't soak into the meat, but once the ice is off, finish the defrosting in a colander in the fridge.

Anyways:

1 lb tiger shrimp with the shell on. Sam's sells them already de-veined.
2 Tablespoons salt
1/4 cup sugar
4 cups water
Some olive oil

Dissolve salt and sugar into water and cool the water with ice or in the freezer.
Brine the shrimp with the liquid for 30 minutes. If the water doesn't cover all of it, add more.

Preheat the broiler. Pat the shrimp dry and toss in olive oil. Broil for about 60 seconds on each side.

Chill immediately and serve with cocktail sauce.

My Uvula's freaking huge

Topic: Recipe
Cuisine: Chinese

Got the tonsils out.

Tongue and Uvula's swollen like nobody's business.

So anyways mom made me steamed egg which I absolutely love:

3 eggs
1 14oz can of chicken broth
1 shake of white pepper
1 green onion

In large bowl, beat the eggs, add the chicken broth, add pepper and green onion.

Steam for 10 minutes in a pot over water that is just boiling. The way to see if it's just boiling is, after you have the water in a rolling boil, change the heat to low, and gradually increase the heat until just starts to boil again. The shallower the pot, the better so that it's easy to get out unless you have one of those nifty lifter thingers. Let sit for 5 minutes.

Rather than a large bowl, you can spoon the mixture into ramekins and steam for 7 minutes.

Garlic Cheese Bread

Because bread sizes differ you can't really put a measurement on the cheeses and oil. Eyeball it. If you have too much of oil or cheese, toss it in with a pasta dish.

1 french baguette sliced crosswise. If you can find any other hard crusted bread, that works as well. The thing is in st. louis that's the only hard crusted bread I can buy. If you like soft crusted breads... *shakes head* ah wells... Anna likes soft bread.

Parmesan, Gouda, and/or Asiago cheeses,shredded. All work on their own and they all work together. A good 8 ounces should do

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, crushed and chopped.
1 teaspoon italian herbs

Heat oil in small saucepan on medium heat and brown garlic in oil. Remove from heat and add the italian herbs. This is so that the herbs won't get burnt.

Turn on Broiler.

Arrange bread on a non-stick pan sheet and spoon oil, with the garlic and herbs, onto the bread. One small spoonful for 2 slices of bread should do.

Sprinkle cheese on bread.

Put into broiler from 30 seconds to 1 minute. Keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't burn.

Asian BBQ Chicken Skewers

Topic: Recipe
Cuisine: Chinese

Quick. Easy.

Chicken Thighs cut into strips
Skewers
Chinese BBQ (Sa Ca) Sauce


Hoisin Sauce

Marinate Chicken thighs in a 2:1 ratio of the Hoisin Sauce and Sa Ca sauce. There's no need for pre-mixing. Just eyeball some spoonfuls of Hoisin Sauce to the degree where you think all the chicken thighs would be just covered, then spoon in half the amount of sa ca sauce.

Let marinate for at least 2 hours.

Skewer and grill.

I didn't really have a good picture of the chicken skewers individually but they're the ones... in the middle right.

Salsa

Topic: Recipe
Cuisine: Mexican

Made with Jim's tomatoes.

2 cups chopped tomatoes
1/2 cup chopped red onion
1 jalapeno pepper... to know if you're buying a hot one give it a smell... you should be able to smell the spiciness.
1 lime
tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon kosher salt. if using regular salt go with a half teaspoon.
1 1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
A small bunch of chopped cilatro leaves.
1 clove garlic.

Mix... let sit for half hour.

Mussels / Clams / Steamers Appetizer

Topic: Recipe
Cuisine: Continental

Kevin asked and I responded.

1 batch of your mollusks (about a dozen)
1/4 cup white cooking wine
2 cloves chopped garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil.... or butter.

french bread for dipping

clean the mollusks under cold water with old toothbrush / scour thinger

heat a large pan to medium high heat... big enough so that the mussels don't stack... if you don't have one that big just use the widest thing you have that'll hold them all.

saute garlic in the oil a bit then put in the mollusks. pour in wine. cover.

these cook pretty fast so keep an eye on them for when they open. if they're stacked a bit stir them around so that the unopened ones on the bottom can open.

filter the juice if you think it's needed (if there's sand). Take 4 roasted garlic cloves and sautee with the juice. You can thicken this up a bit with some cornstarch or flour.

Green Chili Onion Dip

Topic: Recipe
Cuisine: Uh... Continental I guess?

Not as good as Anna's but I'm not allowed to make it. :P

8oz sour cream
1 Tablespoon Green Chili Powder (Can replace a teaspoon of Cayene Pepper instead)
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1 Small onion chopped.
1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
Cracked Black Pepper
1 Teaspoon Garlic Powder
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar (don't worry if you don't have this.)

In small saucepan on medium heat stir onion in oil to coat the onion. Let sit until it starts caramelizing and stir occasionally until the onion pieces are brown. Let onion cool and stir in vinegar.

Mix the remaining ingredients together then stir in the onions. Serve with chips.

Antipasta

Topic: Recipe
Cuisine: Italian

This is a relatively light pile of stuff that keeps well in the fridge. It's rather refreshing during the day and even better if you're a fan of olives.

12oz of Rainbow Rotini (or any other noodle that you think that would work)
1/4 lb salami, sliced
1/4 lb provolone cheese, sliced
1/2 cup olives (I usually put in crap loads more)
1/2 small onion, sliced (not rings)(it's really easy to put too much in)
2 roma tomatoes (seeded and slice lengthwise.)
3/4 cups italian dressing (I like the good seasons dressing)
Cracked black pepper to taste

Cook the pasta (you seasoned the boiling water with salt, right?)
Add all the stuff and combine. Everything is in slices because it's easier to eat things when things are the same size/shape. (Se-4 Xiang-1 Wei-4 Zi-1 Quan-2) Go Kevin's Mom for setting it straight that I WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE ZI.

Let this sit for a couple hours. Overnight is even better. If you try it immediately it won't taste so flavorful. However if you're in a rush, add some more italian dressing and some salt.

Cream of Mushroom Soup

Topic: Recipe
Cuisine: Continental

Modified from the recipe by Christopher Desens.

This recipes makes a LOT of soup so be prepared for leftovers or make this for at least 4 people.

4 oz Butter
4 oz Yellow Onion, chopped.
5 cups water
1 bouillon cube (chicken or vege)
6 oz Finely Shredding Smoked Gouda. Regular Gouda works just as well.
4 oz diced Celery. Sometimes grocery stores sell celery sticks at like the salad bar.
4 oz. flour
2 cups heavy cream.
1 clove Minced Garlic
1/2 cup Madeira. This wine is a pretty good wine for cooking. It has a sort of woody rustic flavor. Good with cheese too.
1-2 Tbsp Chopped Fresh Thyme. Must be fresh or else it just doesn't taste as good.
6 oz Shitake Mushrooms sliced. If you get the ones from the Asian grocery store you can use the stems too so long as you cut them pretty finely.
Some shitake mushrooms for garnish. Usually just the leftover shrooms you have from when you bought them packaged.

1 tspn Salt.
Cracked black Pepper.


The Shitakes and the Thyme can be replaced with Portobellos and Parsley. Of course it's not the same but it tastes just as good and it's a hell lot cheaper and easier to find. Fresh Shitakes are best bought at asian grocery stores. Other "specialty" grocery stores tend to have pretty lame ass shrooms that are pretty dried out. I'm sure the Asian ones were set in water before packaged but at least they're not all bruised and crap. The Asian grocery stores sell them for a lot cheaper too.

Melt Butter in a large pot on medium heat.
When the butter starts to bubble add the garlic, celery, onion, and shrooms. Season with salt and saute until cooked. No need to brown the onion unless you like it like that.
Sprinkle flour while mixing to make a roux. Stir for about 5 minutes to coat all the ingredients and the roux has a relatively dark brownish grey color.
Stir in the bouillon, madeira, and thyme.
Add the water and then gradually stir in the cheese. Finally, stir in the cream.
After the cheese and cream has been added, be careful not to boil the soup or you're get some skin on top or stuff stuck at the bottom. If you're worried about bacteria and crap, before adding the cheese and cream, bring the soup to a boil. Then turn the heat down to a simmer and add the rest.

Use a hand blender to blend well and simmer until the it's a thick smooth consistency.

Saute the leftover sliced shrooms with a pinch of salt to taste and garnish the soup with a couple slices. Of course with vege bouillon it's vegetarian and it actually works. Stupid vegetarians. Here's your damned soup.

Good ole Spaghetti Sauce

Topic: Recipes
Cuisine: Italian

This is just put together so that Anna would have something to follow.

1 jar spaghetti sauce
1/2 lb of lean ground beef
1 small onion, chopped
2 cups mushrooms, chopped
1 tspn garlic powder
1 teaspoon italian herbs
1/4 tspn salt
cracked pepper
1 tblspn olive oil + 1 tblspn

mix garlic powder and at least 2 good grinds of pepper with meat.
In a small pot heat oil to medium high. Brown meat. Remove. Heat other tblspn of oil and saute the mushrooms and onion with salt. Cover to speed up the cooking process but later cook uncovered to let out the excess water. Add italian herbs and beef. Mix. Add the sauce. Let simmer for at least 30 minutes. You can further thicken with corn starch paste.

Chicken Marsala and Garlic Oil Bread

Topic: Recipe
Cuisine: Italian

The obligatory recipe. Taken from the back of the marsala wine bottle.

4 Boneless Skinless Chicken Thighs
flour
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
2 portabello mushroom caps, sliced
1 cup marsala cooking wine
Chopped parsley
kosher salt and cracked black pepper
Half a lemon. Use the other half for water or something.
1 tablespoon cornstarch with water into a paste.

Slice chicken thighs along the center thinner section. Take each section, cover with seran, and pound flat with a mallet or flat side of a large knife. Pat dry with a dry paper towel. Season both sides of chicken with a pinch of salt and 1 crack of black pepper, or more cracks if you like pepper. Dredge the meat in flour.

In deep sauce pan, melt butter in olive oil in medium heat. Brown both sides of chicken, about 4 minutes on each side. Set aside. One good thing to do with them instead of setting them aside in paper towels is to put them on cooling racks on cookie sheets in the oven on warm heat.
Saute mushrooms, stir in wine. Cook away the alcohol. While the sauce is boiling stir in the cornstarch paste to thicken the sauce. Place chicken back into the sauce to make sure that each piece is well covered. On serving plate squeeze lemon over it and garnish with parsley.

You can add more marsala wine.... 1 cup or so with another tablespoon cornstarch into paste... for some pasta. Once coating the chicken in sauce remove chicken to serving plate and throw cooked pasta into the sauce... stir around and remove. Pour remaining sauce over chicken. You can use the other lemon half for the pasta.

Garlic Oil Bread

1/2 cup olive oil (light or extra virgin)
1 clove crushed garlic
1 tablespoon italian herbs

Warm oil in medium heat. Throw in garlic and herbs. Remove when garlic gets a little brown. You can use this as dipping oil OR...
Take a loaf of bread and slice it diagonally but not all the way so that it's still all connected. With the loaf on aluminum foil, spoon oil, herbs and all, into every other gap in the bread. Wrap up and throw into the oven at 300 degrees for 5 minutes.

Hot'n Sour Soup

Topic: Recipe
Cuisine: Chinese

Modified from a Ming Tsai recipe. Where the heck IS that guy?
*He just kicked Bobby Flay's ass in Iron Chef America :) Booya

1/2 lb julienned pork chop or other lean pork meat.
1 teaspoon sesame oil, + 1 teaspoon
1 teaspoon soy sauce, + 2 tablespoons
2 tablespoons cornstarch
Vege oil (1 tablespoon?)
3 dried chilies
1 tablespoon minced ginger
10 cups chicken stock
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 cup julienned bamboo shoots
2 eggs beaten (or more if you like egg)
1/2 cup wood ear
1/2 cup lily flowers
2 tablespoons cornstarch mixed with cold water to make a paste
3/4 cup chinese Black vinegar (If using something stronger like cider vinegar use 1/4 cup)
1 pack of silken tofu (uh... 3*4*2 block?) cut into cubes
chopped scallions
cilantro
salt, White pepper, black pepper

Most of these ingredients are decently easy to find. The not-so-easy ones would be the wood ear and the lily flowers. These may be available at the local Asian grocery store in the dried form. Of course, fresh is best. You can easily find bamboo shoots canned and already julienned.

Notes about rehydrating wood ears and lily flowers: Rehydrate in wood ears in warm water and lily flowers in boiling hot water. Every so often (20 minutes or so) change water (no need for boiling hot in the lilies the second+ time). Rehydrate for at least one hour.

Combine pork with teaspoon sesame oil, teaspoon soy and 2 tablespoons cornstarch and let sit for 30 minutes. In a pot on medium-high heat coat the bottom with oil and sear the pork. Set aside. Add chilies and ginger, stir. Add stock, sugar, bamboo, wood ear, and lilies. Bring to boil. While boiling, stir in the cornstarch paste to thicken. If you like your soup even more goopy add more paste :P While boiling again, drizzle in egg in a circular motion to make ribbons. Add vinegar, soy, sesame oil, pork, and tofu. Check for seasoning with any of the sauces.

When serving add cilantro, scallions, and pepper. Those fried chinese noodle things at Americanized chinese restaurants are awesome too, or you could just fry up some wonton skins.

This recipe can be easily modified to suit your tastes and you can add practically anything you want to it. The most important flavoring in this soup (aside from the vinegar and chiles) would have to be the pork. It just doesn't taste any good without it. Of course this recipe could be veganized but who would want that.

Spare Ribs

Topic: Recipe
Cuisine: Continental

This one's taken from the Good Eats guy. I think it's under "who luvs ya baby back" at foodtv.com. I don't even know why I changed it... I think it was cuz I didn't have the cash to invest in spices... ah yes... the college life.

2 slabs of spare ribs.

Rub:
4 tablespoons brown sugar
liberal amounts of salt (or seasoned salt), garlic powder, rubbed thyme, cracked black pepper.
Liberal as in you're shaking the hell out of the shaker :P
Some cayenne pepper depending on how you like it.

Liquid:
1 cup white wine (cheap ass cooking wine... I used the asian stuff :P)
2 tablespoons white vinegar
2 tablespoons worcestershire sauce (or more if you like it )
2 tablespoons honey
2 cloves chopped garlic (you can never have too much so throw some more in for good measure.)

Preheat oven at 250 degrees.

I usually just have the ribs on heavy aluminum foil (shiny side down) and shake everything on it one ingredient at a time. I guess the proper way of doing it is mix everything together so that it's all blended then rubbing it on. wrap each slab in foil and let the ribs sit for a while (1-2 hours) in the fridge.
Pour liquid into the foil pouch thingers and braise in the oven for 2.5-3 hours. you can do it longer if you like your meat more erm.... pull offable.

Unwrap and grill them for that burnt flavor. You can take the braising liquid and reduce it and use that for a sauce. I like sweet baby ray's. If crazy vegetarians like that crap on white rice... it has to be good. apply the sauce while grilling.

Now you know why I get excited when spare ribs are on sale for less than 2 bucks a pound :P

Beef Soup

Stolen from Byron :P Just a bit different. All the ingredients are easy to get cept the beef paste may need some extra searching. The asian grocery store here has it so I'm happy. Obviously not as good as the beef noodle soup we all know and love but it's pretty damned good and cheap and easy to make.

1 pound beef soup bone with meat or any other relatively fatty beef with bone.
2 slices Ginger
Two things of green onion
2 cloves garlic
Any noodle you like. Flat asian ones (rice or bean) are good.
salt / pepper
1 tablespoon oil
2 quart water
1/2 cup cooking wine
2 tablespoons soy sauce
Two spoonfulls "gia vi nau pho" instant beef flavor paste.
Cilantro
More green onion.
Lime
Any chili sauce that you like.


Rub oil on meat (be sure to rub bones too) and season with salt and pepper. In a medium pot on medium/high heat brown both sides of the meat. When flipping to the other side of the meat throw in the green onion, garlic, and ginger onto the pot's surface. Add the cooking wine and soy sauce and let that sizzle for about 2 minutes. Add water and the beef paste. Bring to high heat to bring to a boil, then let simmer on low for at least 2 hours. This is so the meat practically falls into nice chunks when you're serving it.

Cook the noodles according to instructions. Serve soup with noodles, Cilantro, Lime, or anything else you enjoy with this type of soup. Serves 4-6 people. I think. :P