[intro music] Hey guys, Jeremy here from School
of Wok, Covent Garden. This week another Wok
Wednesday and it's a Hong Kong special: Beef
Brisket Noodle Soup. So this is one of the
Hong Kong classics: Beef Brisket Noodle Soup.
Actually one of my uncles used to fly over
to Hong Kong just for a weekend just for a
midnight beef brisket noodle soup. He'd call
my dad up and say, "Hey, I'm hungry! Shall
we go eat?" and then he'd leave about two
days later. Anyway, so that's how good beef
brisket noodle soup can be. We're gonna start
with your ginger and spring onion and a little
bit of garlic, and that's just to sort of
flavour the soup base. We've got some chicken
stock that's been boiling away, or simmering
away for a good few hours yesterday. Slices
of ginger is all we really need. Spring onion,
a fair amount. And again, just sort of rough
chunks, 'cause we're gonna sieve this out
later on. Garlic. Just a gentle bash! And
then just straight in there pretty much whole.
Your spring onion just to garnish at the end;
just rings. We've got your beef brisket...
Now in Hong Kong, we have your brisket, but
also like, tendon that we eat. Beef tendon.
You wanna boil that for hours and hours and
hours if you can, because it will really soften
up. We want sort of, chunks of your beef tendon.
You can see, it's pretty chewy. The longer
you boil this the better, which is why beef
brisket noodle soup like this, is often eaten
sort of, after a night out, at like, 3 o'clock
in the morning if you are a party animal like
me... [loud music] Well, to be honest, I'm
getting quite old. So, your tendon is pretty
much there. Your brisket, you want good large
dices of brisket. And again, keep the fat
on - that marbling is really great for flavour.
Nice sized chunks. And you know you've got
good brisket if the marblings there, but it's
not too fatty. Right, so I've got my tendon,
I've got my brisket, I've got my base flavour
and my spices to go with that. The first thing
I'm gonna do actually, is I'm gonna blanche
my beef tendon because of course, there's
a lot of fat and sinew in there: that's gonna
create a lot of scum, so I'd rather get as
much as that scum out as possible first before
I put it into the stock. Water's boiling:
this is just for the tendon, as I say, just
to bring out that sort of excess fat or solid
impurities, I guess. You can see the scum
coming off the fat straight away. There's
no going around that, but this is essentially
almost a cleaning process before it goes into
your clear soup. In Hong Kong tradition, and
in our Hong Kong food, there's a lot of offal...
It's almost like a no waste policy. That no
waste policy isn't really to do with sustainability
as such, it's more about, it just pains us
to see food go to waste. Just dip it in a
little bit of clean, cool, cold water and
then we can start cooking your beef brisket.
Beef brisket, tendons, all definitely slow
cook. The longer you cook this, the better.
At a bare minimum, 2 hours, but really it
needs to go for 4 or 5 hours if you have that
time. High heat, just to bring the heat up
and then onto medium heat. I'm gonna start
to flavour the base of the pan before I pour
the stock in. A small amount of oil, not too
much. Main base of five spice, so star anise,
the start of five spice. Cinnamon stick, or
cassia bark, just gonna crack that in half.
Some bay leaves, and then not too many, just
a couple of cloves. And we're gonna start
to fry these spices. Immediately because of
that oil, and the heat, you'll smell the spices
and the aroma of those spices coming out.
Next up, garlic, ginger, spring onion: your
main base of Chinese cuisine. I do want the
ginger and garlic to go almost a little bit
golden brown if I can. And we're actually
gonna start to add the beef, your sauces,
and caramelise the sauces around the beef
first before you add your chicken stock. That'll
really give a serious amount of flavour to
the beef itself. Once you've got that browning
of ginger, your spring onion can go in. Give
that a good stir. And again, just allow that
spring onion to sear nicely because it's gonna
bring out the essence of flavour and add to
the stock. My briskets going in. Just push
that brisket down into the oil. And then we're
gonna start to add your sauces. Oyster sauce,
you're probably looking at about 1 to 2 tablespoons
of oyster sauce: I'm going for blobs here.
Right, we want that to sort of boil up and
caramelise nicely before we add our stock.
We've got a bit of light soy sauce. Again,
about a tablespoon of light soy. I'm gonna
bring the heat up now to a higher heat so
it comes to a vigorous boil. So you wanna
add your tendon to your pan at this point
whilst you're caramelising that sauce around
the meat. I've got my chicken stock here.
It's cold chicken stock so we can keep this
stock nice and clear. You can see now, more
scum coming off, and that's from the oil and
the meat that's gone in - so the beef brisket.
So just gonna take that scum out. That's what
that bowl of cold water's really useful for.
And I advise to do this every sort of, 15-20
minutes, and then you'll end up with a really
nice, clear, clean stock. So once all your
stock's in, literally, bring it to a boil
and then bring it down to a simmer. Let it
simmer for as long as you can cope for. As
long as you've got. I just need a pinch of
salt, but I'll do that later, just for seasoning.
Whilst your stock's boiling away, you can
soak your noodles. These are fine egg noodles.
You can use whatever noodles you want really.
Actually in a classic Chinese cafe, you have
the option of what noodles you want, so: flat
rice noodles, egg noodles, flat egg noodles...
there's so many different types. You can even
have a curried version of this beef brisket
noodle soup. I have that recipe in my book
Hong Kong Diner, just because I like it. It'll
probably take about 4-5 minutes to soak these
egg noodles. Once they've lost their packet
shape, then we're gonna strain it, and dry
it on a clean tea towel. So you don't wanna
over cook your noodles at this point, or any
point really. So you wanna strain those. The
best thing to do is actually to dry it on
a clean tea towel. But of course you've got
4-5 hours for this, so they'll be nice and
dry for later and they'll keep their bite
and be nice and separate. [music] Right so
my soup has had about 4 or 5 hours, and the
beef I've tried one piece. It's really nice
and soft. The tendons have softened up well
as well. So we just need to season this with
a good bit of salt. Have a little taste. All
that ginger and spice. Ohhh! Oh, I feel like
I'm in the streets of Hong Kong, and I haven't
even finished the dish yet. So we're gonna
fish out all the bits just to give myself
a bit of space. Now we're just gonna keep
this nice and simple, we've got your egg noodles.
30 seconds. Serve them up. Then a good selection
of your meat and tendon. Start to pile these
up. Your stock, which is really nice and hot,
packed full of savoury flavour. Spring onion.
Really keep it as simple as your beef and
noodles. I've got some flash fried morning
glory for the side. Tuck into the noodles.
The proper Chinese way is to slurp when you
drink your soup. Let's try the tendon. Mmm.
Got a good chew to it. Should be soft but
still a bit chewy. The soup has got all that
flavour from the base. Your spices, your star
anise, your cinnamon. Really takes me back
to Hong Kong. If you like this recipe, and
you wanna learn more, or you just want a taste
of Hong Kong or anywhere in Asia, subscribe
to our channel. [outro music]
