Life's Ambrosia

Beef Noodle Soup

Let me start out by saying to all of you die-hard Pho lovers out there, this is not Pho. This however, is as close as I could come to making Pho one night when I was craving noodle soup and I didn’t have the time to let the broth simmer for 4 hours and the same night that I also found out that Star Anise is far too exotic for my local super market to carry. For those of you that have no idea what Pho is, ignore my first two sentences and embrace this delicious noodle soup with ginger and clove seasoned beef broth, tender steak, noodles, cilantro, bean sprouts and, in my case, the jalapeno from hell.

Don’t worry I don’t anticipate you using a jalapeno from hell in your recipe. Ryan and I however weren’t so lucky. If you’ve been reading the blog for a while you know that I love me some spicy food and to be honest a jalapeno is usually child’s play to me. No really, I liked to snack on them when I was a kid. But all of that aside, in this instance, I took one bite of the jalapeno in my soup and my mouth was on fire. My eyes instantly began watering and no amount of water could cool it down. I even stuck my tongue out of my mouth and tried to fan it off but alas that didn’t work either. Through my watery eyes, I looked over at Ryan and he seemed to be suffering just as much as I was. His eyes were watering and he had this “How could you do this to me?” look on his face as he reached for his beer. After one gulp he was able to mutter “I think this is the jalapeno from hell.” before taking another gulp of beer. Yet despite all of this, we continued to eat this soup, jalapenos and all, until all we had left was broth, and then we drank that too. So, yea, this soup is that good.

Beef Noodle Soup Recipe

Serves 4 Prep Time: 15 min Cook Time: 1 hr 15 min

Print Recipe

Ingredients:

6 cups beef broth
1 medium yellow onion, cut in half, one half thinly sliced, leave the other half whole
2 cloves garlic
2 tahi chilies, stems removed
1 teaspoon whole cloves
1 cinnamon stick
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 pound round steak, thinly sliced
fresh cracked pepper and kosher salt
1 (8.8) ounce package of thin rice noodles
6 ounces bean sprouts
1 - 2 jalapenos, sliced
handful cilantro, chopped
sriracha and hoisin sauce (optional)

Instructions

In a large soup pot combine beef broth, 1/2 of onion (the portion not sliced), garlic, thai chilies, cloves and cinnamon stick. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and let simmer for 1 hour. Use a slotted spoon to remove onion, garlic, cloves and cinnamon stick. Keep broth on low heat.

Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Season the round steak with salt and pepper. Cook until browned, about 3 minutes. Transfer to a plate and set aside.

Bring a large pot of water to boil and cook rice noodles according to directions. Drain.

Divide noodles and steak evenly among large soup bowls. Place a small handful of bean sprouts, a couple slices of jalapeno and cilantro leaves in each bowl. Ladle hot broth over each bowl. Serve with sriracha and hoisin sauce.

Notes

Oh and don't worry, most jalapenos aren't as hot as what I experienced. They do add a nice little heat to the soup though. Enjoy!

Leave a Comment Cancel Comment

Stephanie

November 16, 2011 at 3:21 pm

When do we add the 1/2 of onion that is sliced??

Kevin

February 11, 2010 at 3:49 pm

That soup looks really good. I like the use of the cinnamon.

tigerfish

February 3, 2010 at 4:01 pm

I cannot miss that green chili on your noodles. Here, they pickle the green chili in vinegar and it is so good with a noodle dish like this.

Jessica

February 2, 2010 at 10:44 am

lol, I got here through foodgawker just to comment about the “jalapenos from hell”. I guess I met your jalapenos’ brother, because I, too, love and can handle my spicy food…at least I thought I could until one alcohol-induced night led a group of friends and I to a late night pho place. The boyfriend downed a jalapeno “just to see what it tasted like” and proceeded to interrupt me about five times about how “haaaawt [it] was”.

Just to shut him up, I grabbed a good sized piece and about thirty seconds later, proceeded to drink almost every glass of water that was on the table, much to our companions’ surprise. lol! Yes, there are jalapenos, then there are jalapenos straight from the depths of hell!