Winter is a great season for noodles especially hot and warm noodle soup. Lanzhou beef noodle soup, one of the national soup star in China looks plain and common. But it successfully obtains the love of all the foodies who have token the first bite. Comparing with the newly rising stars (like Chongqing noodles), it has been a traditional national Chinese noodles for quite a long history.
A typical Lanzhou beef noodles soup is described to be “1 clear, 2 white, 3 red, 4 green, 5 yellow” (一清、二白、三红、四绿、五黄) to signify respectively clear soup, white radish, red chili oil, green coriander and garlic leek and yellow noodles. Alkali ash, a traditional important ingredient in real Lanzhou style hand pulled noodles, brings a faint yellowish to the noodles.
In this recipe, we will try our best to reproduce the soup and taste at home. However Lanzhou style hand-pulled noodle is unprocurable to me, so I bought packaged lamian noodles from the market. If you ever visit China especially the northern provinces, I highly recommend trying at least one bowl of authentic Lanzhou beef noodle soup. You can be served with extremely wide noodles, thick noodles, thin noodles, and extremely thin noodles and may have the chance to watch the hand-pulled process. It is quite magic when I see the performances.
Part I: Beef stock
I use beef oxtail and back bones for the basic ingredients for beef stock. You can use leg bones. Besides, by adding chicken bones, beef shank (or beef flank), ginger, green onion and spices, the taste of the soup is well improved.
Ingredients
1 beef oxtail (around 1000g)+ 250g back bones + 250g chicken bones+ ⅓ of one beef shank (around 500g).
Removing the blood waters: add all the bones and meat in a large pot, pour in enough water to cover, add green onion and 4 slices of ginger and then bring to a boiling. Transfer out and clean.
Soak all the spices with around ½ cup boiling hot water for 10 minutes and then wrap all of them with a glaze bag and seal with cotton lines.
Spice list:
- 2 star anises
- 1 small piece of Chinese cinnamon
- 2 bay leaves
- ¼ teaspoon Sichuan peppercorn (must)
- 4 cloves
- ¼ teaspoon whole cumin seeds
- ⅛ teaspoon fennel seeds
- 1 cardamom
- 3 Amomum Cardamomum pods
- 1 dried chili
- 1 Amomum tsaoko
Add all the bones and beef shank, scallion whites and spiced wrapped in the glaze bag. Pour around 2.5L to 3L water (separately for high pressure cooker and cast iron soup pot). Bring to boil and simmer for around 1.5 to 2 hours.
Add salt to taste.
Then take out the beef shank and cut thinly.
Part II: Chive oil and garnish
Chop garlic leek (蒜苗) and coriander. Pre-make the chili oil and let it set side for at least 4 hours (the oil turns red after soaking)
Peel and daikon into thin slices and then cook in the soup base for 2 minutes. Transfer out.
Cook noodles as directed. Scoop only soup to cover the noodles.
Assemble with slices of beef shank, cooked daikon slices and garnish garlic leek and coriander.
Drizzle chili oil before serving!
🧾Recipe
Lanzhou Beef Noodle Soup
Ingredients
- 1 beef oxtail , around 1000g, cut into 2cm thick pieces
- 250 g back bones
- 250 g chicken bones
- 500 g beef shank
- 2 green onions
- 1 thumb ginger , sliced
- 2 scallion whites
- 3 L water
- salt to taste
- Noodles for serving
Spices
- 2 star anise
- 1 small piece of Chinese cinnamon
- 2 bay leaves
- ¼ tsp. Sichuan peppercorn , must
- 4 cloves
- ¼ tsp. whole cumin seeds
- ⅛ tsp. fennel seeds
- 1 cardamom
- 3 Amomum Cardamomum pods
- 1 dried chili pepper
- 1 Amomum tsaoko
Garnish and drizzle
- 1 cup chopped coriander
- 1 cup chopped garlic leek
- half of a daikon radish
- chili oil , as needed
Instructions
Make the stock
- Remove the blood waters: add all the bones and meat in a large pot, pour in enough water to cover, add green onion and 4 slices of ginger and then bring to a boiling. Transfer out and clean.
- Soak all the spices with around ½ cup boiling hot water for 10 minutes and then wrap all of them with a glaze bag and seal with cotton lines.
- Add all the bones and beef shank, scallion whites and spiced wrapped in the glaze bag. Pour around 2.5L to 3 L water (separately for high pressure cooker and cast iron soup pot). Bring to boil and simmer for around 1.5 to 2 hours. Add salt to taste.
Cook and assemble noodles
- Take out the beef shank and cut thinly. Cook radish slices in broth for 2 minutes, set aside.
- Cook noodles as directed and then scoop enough beef stock to cover. Top with daikon slices, beef shank slices, coriander, garlic leek (or green onion) and chili oil. Serve hot!
Nutrition
Jack
Hi Elaine. If you use a pressure cooker how long do you think you need to cook the meat etc. under high pressure?
thanks
Jack
Elaine
Jack,
If you use meat mode, it should be around 1 hour.
Nick
I love this soup, but rarely make it on my own because I love to go to a restaurant where you can watch them pull the noodles by hand!
Elaine
Ture. Hand-pulling noodle performance seems quite magic to me too.
G
What noodles do you use?
Elaine
I use the packaged hand pulled noodles. You can use common white fresh noodles for this recipe.
simon
I am a Chinese chef and I see that the inside of your noodles is still not cooking
Elaine
Simon,
We usually slightly under cook fresh noodles since they will continues to be heated in the hot soup.
Katie
Hi could you post some links for :
cardamom
Amomum Cardamomum pods
Amomum tsaoko
I’m confused about the different cardamoms
Elaine
Sure,
This is a good question, Katie. I will draw a post introducing all types of Chinese spices soon.
Zuraida
I have the same question like Katie. Where can I get those spices? I live in Malaysia.
I have tried eating this noodle at restaurants before. It tasted really great. Hopefully I can have a home-cooked Lanzhou Beef Noodle Soup.
Elaine
Hi Zuraida,
Sorry I cannot figure out where you can get the spices. All I know is that you can try to ask the Chinese stores to see whether they have Chinese spice bags, in which lots of uncommon spices might be included.
Brian van Weijen
This is one of my favorite noodle dishes. The combination of a rich broth, chilli oil, topped with fresh coriander is just amazing.
Recently I've added some watercress. It goes extremely well with this dish.
Elaine
Thanks Brian!
You get all the highlights of the dish. It must be very good in cold winter.
By the way, watercress is an excellent ingredients for almost all soups.
walter
Do you have the chinese name for amomum cardamomum? Is it 'dou kou' ? Do you also have the recipe for beef stock for your braised beef shank recipe? Thank you.
Elaine
Yes, it is ‘dou kou’ 豆蔻.
Hannah Rogers
Can you explain what a glaze bag and selling the cotton lines means? I'm just not sure what that step is.
Elaine
Hannah,
I mean wrap the spices with a glaze and then seal with cotton lines.
yu ma
Thanks for this recipe! Is the Amomum cardamom (which another comment identified as 豆蔻）the same thing as nutmeg? And is the 1 cardamom mentioned amomum kravnh? Thanks!
Elaine
Amomum cardamom and nutmeg are different with similar aromatics.