Directions

• Give the beef a long cold bath. I bought 500g beef shin from my local Saintsbury, I feel it has the right amount of fat and lean meat ratio. You can use other cuts, too. Take a big container, put cold water in and add 1 tsp of Shaoxing Cooking Wine and 1 piece of fresh ginger. Put the beef in and let it sit for 30-60 minutes.
• While the beef is comfortably bathing, let’s cut the tomatoes into big chunks then set them aside for later use. I cut them in half first and cut each half into 4 pieces.
• Time to change the beef water. Keep bathing the beef and change the water every 15 mins until the water is clear and no more blood is coming out.
• Prepare the spices: 2 slices of ginger, 2g star anise, 1 cinnamon stick, 2g Sichuan peppercorn, 2 bay leaves, 4 cloves of large garlic, 1 tsaoko, 2g fennel seeds, 25g leek and 3 dried hawthorn slices.
• Warm up your cooking pot, add 1 tbs of oil and a tsp of cane sugar. Mix over medium heat until sugar melts and the sugar and oil mix turns brown. Then, add your spices in and let it all cook for 1 minute.
• Take the beef out from its bath and let it dry. Put it in the pot and quickly stir. Add 1 tbs soybean paste (you should be able to get this in your local Chinese shop) and 2 tsp of oyster sauce. Keep stirring to let everything in the pot mix well.
• Let our beef cook thoroughly with the lid on the pot, then transfer everything into the pot in your pressure cooker and add just enough hot water to cover everything in the pot. Put it on the “stew option” and let it cook.
• While our beef is being cooked let’s cook our tomatoes! Warm up a cooking pot, add 1 tsp of vegetable oil and let it heat up.
• Add the chunky tomatoes from Step 2 to the pot. Add 1 tsp of salt and close the lid to let them cook until they are soft and mushy.
• Set aside and wait for the beef to finish cooking.
• Separate all the spices from our beef stew until we have only beef and soup in the pressure cook pot left.
• Add the cooked tomatoes to the stew. Add 1 tsp of salt, 2 tsp of sugar and ¼ tsp of Wangshouyi Multi-flavoured seasoning.
• Mix well and put it back to the pressure cooker for another full stew program.
• After it’s done, take it all out of the pressure cooker. Transfer the content to a cooking pot and let it boil on medium-high heat without a lid for 10-15 mins. This is to thicken the stew and give it a more concentrated flavour.
• The beef stew now should be ready, and if you taste the stew itself it should taste a bit too salty to eat the way it is right now, and that is ok.
• For me, the soul of soup noodles is hidden in the noodle water itself. After you boil your noodles, add them to your bowl as well as the water left in the pot with which you boiled your noodles. Trust me. This simple step will bring out all the flavours of your soup noodles.
• Add your beef tomato stew to the bowl. My ratio is 2 portions of the noodle water and 1 portion of the stew, but you can try different ratios to your taste.
• Garnish with a boiled egg and vegetables of your choice. Add a touch of Chinese dark rice vinegar if you are a fan and enjoy (您慢用 nín màn yòng ）！