taiwanese beef noodle (niu rou mian)

I woke up this morning craving for Taiwanese beef noodle. I've never been to Taiwan, but I hear that the food there is amazing. I don't know how the authentic niu roh mian taste like, but this turned out really good. My husband gave 10/10, so that says a lot about the dish. I didn't have some ingredients on the original recipe, so here's my version of it. Happy cooking!

Total time of cooking: about 4 hours 

Ingredients: 

Beef short ribs / Pork ribs - 2 lbs

[First round of soup]
Water - 5 cups
Soy sauce - 1/2 cup
Brown sugar - 1/4 cup
Fresh Ginger - 1 (1 inch) cube (peeled and smashed)
Green onion/scallion - 1 bunch (about 10)
Garlic - 3 cloves (smashed)
Cilantro stems - 10
Orange peels - 2 (2-inch) slices
Star anise - 4 (medium size, about 1/2 to 2/3 inch)
Red pepper flake - 1/4 tsp
Pepper - 1/2 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp

[Second round of soup]
Beef broth - 2 cups (2 cup water + beef stock cube)
Water -1 cup at a time

Chinese or Japanese wheat noodle - 2 packets (serves 4) **see TIPS
Baby bok choy - 4 (separated in pieces)
Cilantro - for garnish
Green onion - for garnish

Prep: 

1. Peel/skin garlic and ginger and smash them, but not cut them in pieces.
2. Cut the ends of green onion, cut the green part off. For the white part, cut into half.
3. Cut orange peels from fresh orange or you can use dried orange peels. 
4. Chop ribs into 1-2 inch size 
5. Cut baby bok choy into pieces and wash them. Set it aside.
   
6. [garnish] Chop cilantro and green onion for garnish

 Cook: 

1. In a pot (5-6 quartz), combine all the ingredients under [First round of soup]. Uncover and bring to boil, then lower the heat to simmer for about 10 minutes.
2. Add in beef ribs/pork ribs/meat in the soup. Cover and boil for 2 and half hours. Stir occasionally (e.g. after 30 minutes or so). 
3. Take out the meat and other solids from the pot by using slotted ladle (or you can use the sieve and transfer the soup to another big bowl). 
4. Add in [Second round of soup], but add the beef broth first. Let it simmer for 30 minutes. Adjust the taste by adding more water (the taste can be very strong at first). Let it simmer for another 30 minutes uncovered. 
5. Meanwhile, take the bones out of the meat and set the meat aside. Toss other solids & bones. 
6. Cook the noodle as instructed on the packet. Rinse them in cold water and set it aside. 
7. 1-2 minutes before serving, add baby bok choy in the soup. 

Separate meat from bones

Serve:

1. In a bowl, put desired amount of noodle. Add the meat and bok choy on top of the noodle.
2. Pour the soup on top. Garnish with cilantro and green onion. 
3. If you like extra spicy, you can cut up chili and serve with soy sauce. 
4. Taiwanese pancake also goes well with this noodle dish.

 TIPS

• For the noodle, look for 0.5cm thick noodles, like linguine. You can also use linguine if you can't find Chinese noodle. 
• Pork ribs turned out great. You can experiment with different kinds of meat, but the meat with bones give extra flavor to the soup!