Slow Cooker Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup Recipe (牛肉麵)

Hi guys, it's Angel. Today I'm going to show you how to make Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup. Also known in Mandarin as Niu Rou Mian. Now Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup is actually a very famous soup dish in Taiwan. It's so famous that they actually made it a national dish. And every year, believe it or not, they host competitions in Taipei to see who can make the best beef noodle soup. It's that good. This recipe is actually from my uncle. And he shared it with me and I tweaked it up so that way I can use the slow cooker. And the reason why I'm using the slow cooker here is because his recipe took hours and hours and hours. And I really didn't want to slave away over the stove for hours. So using the slow cooker really helps and it actually tastes very good. It makes the beef really tender. I hope you guys enjoy this recipe and I hope you try it. Please let me know how you like it in the comments below and let's get started. For this recipe, we will need about 1 pound of beef shank. And I have about a pound here. And you can see I've put it to paste with some tendons in it because it's actually pretty good in the soup. Once this pot of water comes to a boil, we will go ahead and boil this for about 1-2 minutes. Just to kind of clean everything off. Okay, it's been about 2 minutes. You're just going to take this out. Let it drain and cool on the cutting board. And once that's cool enough, we can go ahead and cut it. Once you're done cutting the meat, you can go ahead and put them into the slow cooker. Next, to enhance the flavor of our beef soup, we are going to need help from a couple of fresh ingredients. I've got 1 small to medium-sized tomato. 1 medium-sized yellow onion. 2 stalks of onions. Green onions. And you only really need 2 carrots. 2 medium-sized carrots. But because these are really small and thin-sized ones, I have 3 carrots. First, we'll start with the green onions. We'll just want to chop the green onions into a couple big pieces. They can just be rough cuts. Like this. It doesn't have to be exact since these are going in the soup. Next, I am going to peel and cut my carrots. Big chunks like these are okay. Next, I've got our tomato which will add a bit of sweetness to the soup. And I'm just going to cut them into quarters like so. Finally, our yellow onion. Now, for our yellow onion, I've cut these into halves. I am going to then cut these into pieces like so. This is going into the soup. The other half I want to chop up into... Slice them into thinner pieces. We will also need a small piece of ginger cut up into slices. And 8 cloves of garlic. Now that I'm done cutting all my fresh ingredients for the soup, I'm going to separate them into 2 plates. The first plate are ingredients that are going directly into the slow cooker. And the second plate I've got half of the yellow onion which I've chopped into smaller pieces. My ginger and my garlic. And these are going to go into a pan to stir fry first along with some of our spices which we will be using next. To start off for this recipe, we will need half a teaspoon of fennel. Mmm, that smells good. 8 cloves, 8 whole cloves. 1 teaspoon of Sichuan peppercorns which are the red peppercorns. 3 star anise. I'm trying to find nice looking ones. Half of a cinnamon stick. To give it a little bit of a kick, we are going to use dried chili pods like these. And I'm going to use 3 or 4 of them. Let's go for 4. That will give you kind of a mild, dull heat. Which is not like a spicy, spicy heat because the spicy heat will actually come when we add some raw chili peppers later after the dish is cooked. Next, let's cook the spices. Add a bit of oil to a sauce pan. Then add your yellow onions and stir fry until translucent and caramelized. After the onions are caramelized, turn the heat down a bit and then add your garlic, ginger, and your spices. Stir fry the spices for about 1 minute to let the aroma out. Then we are going to deglaze our pan with a few tablespoons of rice wine. After we're done deglazing, turn off your heat then set the pan aside. Next, add everything into your slow cooker. There's the plate of coarsely chopped veggies. Then all the spices from our pan. If there's any remaining spice or glaze from your pan, feel free to add a bit of water to help wash off any remaining bits into the slow cooker. Next, add 6 tablespoons of your favorite soy sauce. I'm using this brand of premium black bean soy sauce, which has a little bit of sugar added so my soup will be slightly sweet. Then add 6 cups of filtered water plus 2 tablespoons of beef bouillon stock base. Don't worry about stirring because our slow cooker will do most of the work for us. Once you're done adding all the ingredients, cover your slow cooker, then set your slow cooker for one of the recommended cook times. Either high heat, 6-8 hours, or low heat, 9-10 hours. Half an hour left on my slow cooker and my kitchen smells amazing right now. I actually wanted to get started making some of the condiments, and then also some noodles, and then the bok choy to go with the soup beforehand so when the soup is done, we can go ahead and just put everything together and serve. So with that, we've got the condiments. We need cilantro and chilies if you like extra spiciness. And then preserved mustard greens or preserved vegetables, sour mustard greens. They have many different names for them, but they come in plastic packages. And all you have to do is drain and rinse these really well, and then we'll chop them up and they go on top and in the soup. Very good. We'll also need some noodles and some fresh vegetables. My vegetable of choice in this dish is bok choy, baby bok choy. And I like to use about one bok choy per person. I cut these into quarters and blanch these for about a minute or two prior to serving. My noodle of choice are these frozen hand-shaven noodles, sometimes known as knife-cut noodles, but they come frozen and individually packaged, so they're really convenient. And I really like the taste and look of this noodle, because it kind of gives it that authentic Taiwanese feel. Added bonus, they're made in Taiwan too. Now, let's cook. Bring a pot of water to a boil and blanch your bok choy for one to two minutes. Make sure not to overcook, because we still want the veggies to be crispy. In the same pot of water, cook your noodles as directed. For chewier noodles, rinse them under cold water to stop the cooking process. Finally, let's assemble the bowl. Start with some noodles, some bok choy. Now we can check on our soup. Give it a quick stir. Then let's check up on our meat. Wow, the meat is really tender. It's literally falling apart. Add a few pieces of beef to each bowl. Then I like to strain the soup so the broth is nice and clear. Add some garnish, and then we're done. Authentic Taiwanese beef noodle soup, made with a little help from our slow cooker. Easy, but more importantly, delicious. So this is how you make authentic Taiwanese beef noodle soup with a slow cooker. As you can see earlier, the meat was literally falling off the utensils, and the slow cooker really brought out the flavors of the soup. I had a little taste test earlier, so it was good. I hope you guys enjoyed watching the video. Don't forget to like and subscribe, and I will see you guys next time. Bye! The onions are making me cry. Time out!