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Instant Pot - Beef Noodle Soup

3/3/2021
When it’s cold and gloomy outside, Amy and I love cooking up the perfect bowl of beef soup. The beef broth is cozy and has a bit of spice. The beef is tender and melts right in your mouth. It’s awesome.Normally, we’d make this on the stove-top. The process takes about 2-3 hours total, which can be a bit daunting if you’re a busy person.And then we got an instant pot. This little baby doubles up as a rice cooker (which we just got rid of after moving) AND speeds up the cooking process of this dish down to 30 minutes. That’s a win to me!For selection of beef, This is extremely flexible. You’re cooking it down to a tender bite, so even the cheapest cuts will get you there. My personal favorites are flank and brisket (or both together)!Let’s get down to making this bad boy.

Ingredients

3 star anise
1 cinnamon sticks
1 onion (sliced)
2 g ginger slices
4 garlic cloves
1 tbs dark soy sauce
3 tbs chili garlic sauce
1 tbs chili oil
1 tbs oyster sauce
2 lb beef (cubed)
fresh noodles
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tsp olive oil
1/4 cup cooking wine (xiaoshing wine)
6 cup water

Directions

1. Making your sauce: combine the dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, chili garlic sauce, chili oil, oyster sauce in bowl and leave it on the side. You’ll use this later.
2. Now, you need to clean your beef. This step cannot be skipped, or else your broth will be full of scum! Yuck! Boil enough water for your beef to submerge and bring to a boil.Submerge your beef for 5-7 minutes and let the scum cook out. It will float to the top of your pot. Then, you have two options: - Use a spoon or a small strainer to slowly remove the scum from the broth. Then spoon out the pieces of meat into another bowl. - Strain the soup and the meat (and scum) into another bowl. The (now clearer) soup will be separated from the meat (and scum).Wash your beef with cold water. Make sure it’s clean and semi-dry for this next step.
3. In the Instant Pot, turn it to Sauté mode and let the pot heat up. Once ready, put your oil in. Let it heat up for another 30 seconds before throwing in your star anise, cinnamon stick, scallion, onion, ginger, and garlic. Stir every 30 seconds until aromatic (like 2-3 minutes).
4. Slide things over into one side of your instant pot and throw in your brown sugar. Let the brown sugar caramelize. This will glaze the beef shortly. Once the brown sugar is caramelized, throw in all of your beef chunks and stir again!
5. Pour your sauce mixture into the pot and stir. Then, pour your beef broth and your water into the pot. Everything in the pot should be submerged now. Feel free to add more water.
6. Cover the instant pot and put it on Pressure Mode HIGH for 30 minutes.
7. 10 minutes before the clock is done, boil a pot of water for your fresh noodles. Boil your noodles for 2-3 minutes – watch and make sure your pot doesn’t overflow!
8. Optional but recommended: steam or stir fry some bok-choy. Adds color and fiber.
9.
  1. Once your instant pot beeps, it’s done! Reminder to de-pressurize the pot and let it steam out. Prepare each bowl with noodles on the bottom, beef on one side, soup to cover, and optional vegetables on the other
ROAD TO YUMMY
by Amy & Ricky