Beef and rice noodle soup

My non-spicy son was off with buddies watching Thor part three, so I thought I’d treat my spicy son with a new dish.

Pretty much improvised, it worked out well. So here it is.

Ingredients

• 1 round steak
• 2 cups beef stock (or vegetable stock, or water if you’re caught short)
• 1 lemon, juiced
• 1 teaspoon five spice powder
• .25 cup chopped shallots
• 1 tablespoon chopped lemon grass stem
• 1 tablespoon chopped galangal root
• 2 cups frozen veggies
• 1 tablespoon Xo sauce
• 2 tablespoons light soy sauce
• 3 birdseye chillies, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 4 tablespoons peanut oil
• Rice noodles

Method

This is a very quick dish too assemble - all you have to do is cut the beef into rectangular slabs and pop them in the freezer about three hours ahead of time.

So - take the round steak and cut it into rectangles, removing fat and connecting tissue. You are going to slice it thinly across the grain, so you want each piece no more than 4 cm wide. Lay them flat in one layer in a plastic bag and put in the freezer for three hours. You are aiming at firm, but not hard. This will enable you to slice the beef more thinly.

Once the beef is the right consistency, slice it thinly across the grain and marinate in lemon and five spice powder.

Sauté lemongrass, galangal, garlic, chilli and shallots on low-medium heat for about 10 minutes. Stir in Xo sauce.

In a new saucepan, put on water to boil.

In the soup pan, add stock, and bring to boil. Add soy sauce to taste.

Zap veggies in the microwave.

Add noodles to the boiling water. Toss sliced beef and juices into the soup pan. Beef will cook almost immediately. Add the veggies. And you are done.

Once the noodles are tender, drain, divide into bowls, and ladle over with soup.