John Z Black Mar 3, 2024 recipes #noodles #soup #creole #beef #instant pot

Ingredients:

For the soup:

• 1-2 tbsp neutral high-heat oil. I used avocado
• 2-3 pound chuck roast
• 1 small onion, diced
• 3 small stalks of celery, diced
• 8 cups beef broth (I used harvest farms but you could use anything you like. low sodium if you prefer to mainly season (salt) using soy sauce as it will get too salty otherwise) anywhere from 2 tsp to 3 tbsp Tony Chachere’s (or other Creole seasoning)
• ~1 tsp old bay
• Soy sauce or Shoyu
• Worcestershire sauce
• Ketchup
• Louisiana hot sauce (Louisiana brand recommended for this but use what you like. Should be a vinegar-based sauce. Tabasco is not recommended)

For the meal:

• Noodles. (I used udon but a lot of recipes call for spaghetti. I would think wheat noodles would be the “right” way to go. What kind and how much in each bowl is up to you. I like a lot of noodles) Soft-ish cooked eggs (1 per bowl)
• Sliced green onion

Instructions:

Dice your onion and celery pretty finely. I strain the vegetable bits out at the end but if you want to leave them in maybe go with a larger dice.

Trim off any significant fat from your beef and cut it into large cubes. Maybe 2x2x2 in or so.

Brown the meat:

Turn the instant pot to saute/high

Add cooking oil when hot.

Brown meat in batches so it properly browns instead of steaming. You want real color and fond if possible. If you don’t want to take the time to do it this way, just skip the browning step altogether. Steaming/greying the meat will not add any extra flavor.

Keep cooked bits in a bowl until all the meat is ready.

Browning can be done in a separate pan if you don’t like doing it in the IP. If you do this, deglaze with some of your beef broth when you are done so you get all the flavor from the pan.

Add all the meat back to the IP (and the broth with fond / pan bits if you went that route)

Soup:

Add celery, onion, beef broth, 1 tbsp Soy sauce, old bay, and 2-3 tsp Creole seasoning to the instant pot with the beef. (you can add more soy and seasoning later when you taste after the main cooking process)

Seal the IP, and set it to manual high pressure for 35 minutes.

Start cooking.

Eggs:

I prefer steamed eggs if I’m cooking them on the stovetop. I use a small saucepan with a lid and a metal steamer basket.

I fill the pan with water just below the basket and bring to full steam on high, but not full, heat. On my stove, this is an 8 out of 10.

For this soup I didn’t want “hard” yolks like most recipes call for. I ended up getting a nice soft custardy-but-not-runny yolk by steaming for 9 minutes and then immediately chilling in very cold water until completely cool. If your water gets warm, replace it with more cold water.

Works out well to do this while the soup is cooking. You can do the eggs whenever but there is plenty of time while the meat and broth cook.

You can also just do hard boiled like most yakamein.

Soup:

When the IP is done, natural release for 5-10 minutes then full quick release.

Use tongs to remove meat to a bowl to cool. Should be quite tender. Firm enough to hold together but will pull apart with little effort/pressure. If it is not tender enough you can either put back in the IP and try again in 10 minute intervals with quick release.

In most beef noodle soups, I prefer to not have the vegetables in the final soup so I made sure to rinse all the veggies off the meat by swirling it around in the broth as I take it out. This is up to you.

Strain the broth into a large bowl through a fine-to-standard mesh strainer. Let drip for a bit to make sure you get all the good stuff.

Make sure there is no meat in the strainer and discard the veggies.

Return the broth to the IP

If you want to keep the veggies in the soup, skip the straining.

Set the IP back to saute/high. This will help with final seasoning blending.

(I took a moment here to skim off some of the fat. My cut of beef was relatively lean for chuck so I didn’t have a ton to get rid of. You can leave it all if you like.)

Taste the broth. From here on it’s all personal taste. Add flavors in small bits and keep tasting till you get what you want.

I generally end up adding a total of:

• ~2 tbsp of Creole seasoning (including the initial ~2 tsp)
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbsp ketchup (next time i plan to try some amount of good tomato paste and a bit of sugar instead)
• 2-3 tbsp soy sauce (I wasn’t really measuring, just adding a bit more till it tasted “right” so this is my estimate)
• Quite a few generous shakes of hot sauce. (The vinegar in this is really good. If you don’t like the heat, I’d suggest experimenting with small amounts of white or black vinegar. I would not use a cider vinegar in this)

If the overall broth is too strong you can add more beef stock or water based on the issue to thin it out.

If it starts to boil at any point, I’d turn off the heat. It’s really just to help the seasoning blend in well.

Once happy with the flavor, go back to the meat.

The meat:

If the meat is cool, use your fingers to either shred or just break up into the size you want in your soup. I also pull off most of the pure fat. I don’t enjoy chuck fat in soup the way I do fat from some other cuts. (If you used something like shank or oxtail, I’d suggest leaving the tendon. It should hopefully be nice and soft. This would likely have involved a longer cooking time though.)

If the meat is not yet cool, either wait till it is or use forks, etc to shred/break up.

Add all the beef back to the IP. Make sure to get any juice that escaped while the meat rested and put it back in the broth.

Noodles:

A good chewy wheat noodle will probably be best. Most recipes I’ve seen call for spaghetti but I went with udon. Ramen noodles could be great, broad chinese slice noodles, etc. Whatever you like. Just prepare them based on the type you choose. Follow the instructions on the package if there is one.

Final bowl: Use saute or keep-warm settings to get the soup to a good serving temp.

Finely slice (as finely as you prefer) a bunch of green onion. I used only the green bits this time. Next time I’ll probably use the whole thing.

You can serve the eggs cut in half (lengthwise) or whole. I’ve seen it done both ways but I prefer sliced in half.

Add noodles to the bowl(s)

Use a slotted spoon to add the amount of beef you would like in each serving

Ladle on broth to cover the noodles and beef

Add egg

Top with however much green onion you like.

Serve with chopsticks, a spoon, and extra hot sauce

After the first day, I had ~2 quarts left over. I plan to cook some shrimp or crawfish to add to the soup when I reheat it.