here is one rare cooking post brought to you from prettymom's lazy kitchen.

you don't see much cooking here because i'm very boring with cooking. i only have limited supply of recipes that's repeated weeks after weeks. i think i'd love to cook more if my kids appreciate what i cook. :/

the fat beef noodle soup.

this is sort of inspired from hot pots (火鍋). it's quite tedious to prepare hot pots. and having 2 young kids, it can be dangerous too. when eat hot pots, i love fat beef. so instead of cooking it while we eat, which mostly i'll be the one cooking, i'll cook all the beef all at once and make it into noodle soup.

here's what you need

main ingredients - sliced fat beef (肥牛 - the type you eat with hot pots) and noodle (i use 刀削麵, but any kind of noodle will do. sometimes i use 陽春麵 or 上海拉麵).

and of course some veggies. just because we need to have something healthy! i use bak choi because it's easy to cook.

prepare 2 pots of boiling water. one for cooking noodle and one for cooking beef. add salt to both pots. chinese cooking wine is optional to the pot that'll be cooking beef - which will become soup base. imo wine makes the soup taste better. (see notes at the end of the post about this soup.)

these can be cooked simultaneously and you can have something to eat within 10 mins.

i didn't take photos during the cooking process because i had to be quick stirring noodles and at the same time preventing beef become overcooked. i hate overcooked beef.

with this particular noodle, cooking time is 3 to 4 minutes. however after 4 minutes i like to turn off heat and let it sit for a min or 2 before draining and run it under cold water, so that it'll be more tender and so my kids won't complain they can't bite the noodle. this particular noodle also needs to be stirred from time to time during cooking so they don't stick together.

now, the beef. turn down the heat after water is boiled. put a few slices at a time into boiling water for until the color isn't so red. take them out. just like how you eat hot pots. that's roughly 15 to 20 secs. if there's a bit of red, don't worry, the heat from the beef will eventually cook it. however if you're worried about raw beef, then cook a bit longer.

ideally you should use 2 sets of chopsticks. one for picking up raw meat into the pot and one for picking up cooked meat from the pot. i always mix them up. in addition, the beef is cooked so quickly. the chopstick is in the water while waiting for the beef to be cooked, which is in seconds. so i take that the chopsticks are already sanitized during the process. but... don't quote me. if you're really into hygiene, use 2 sets of chopsticks.

repeat until all beef are cooked.

now it's veggie time. bring the soup back to boil. put a handful of veggies into boiling water at a time. i like crunchy bak choi so i only cooked them for about 15 secs and take them out. repeat for the rest of veggies. don't put all veggies in at once because it'll take time to take them out and they'll be overcooked, unless you prefer overcooked veggies.

season the soup to taste.

.... and voila!

in a big noodle bowl, add drained noodle, top with beef and veggies and pour over the soup that was cooked with beef and veggie. quick and easy!

as for my kids, they don't get this many beef because they're not too fond of it. i also scissored the beef into smaller bitable size for them (or they'll complain they can't chew the meat).

i love this chilly oil to go with my noodle soup. i love love love hot food so for me i need about 1.5 teaspoon of this baby!

you can optionally squeeze some lemon juice to add some flavor to the soup too!

just some note about the beef soup

because fat beef was used, the soup can be somewhat oily. ideally you should wait overnight to get a layer of fat on the top and scrap that off. however this defeats the purpose of having something really quick. i just roughly scoop off the top layer, hoping that will get rid of most fats.

however is you're worried about fat and cholesterol, you're advised to prepare another pot of soup / beef stock just for this purpose.

if you ever tried this recipe, please let me know how you go. :)