Directions

1. Slice 0.5 lb of beef meat into thin pieces. Ribeye, sirloin steak works the best for this recipe.

2. Marinade the beef with 1 tbsp of soy sauce, 1/4 tsp of salt or to taste, 1/4 tsp of onion powder, 1.5 tbsp of corn starch, 1 egg white. What we are doing here is the cornstarch and egg white velveting marinade. It does a great job on tenderizing meat. Mix them well and Keep massaging them. You really need to get in between each piece of meat to make sure they are all well-taken care. Once they are nice and smooth kind of like a velvety texture, you are good to go. Cover it and let it sit for 20 minutes.

3. You will need 5 medium size tomatoes. Get a sharp knife. Make a slight cross on the surface of the tomato. Pour in some boiling hot water and let the tomatoes sit in the hot water for about 4 minutes or until you can see some cracks appearing on the skin. Take them out. Now you can easily peel the skin off.

4. Diced the tomato. Set that aside. I like to use fresh tomatoes. But yes, you can use can diced tomato. That will make this recipe so much easier.

5. 1/2 of red onion. Slice and finely diced it.

6. 1 piece of scallion, separate the white and green part. Dice the white part and put it with the onion. Save the green part for garnish at the end.

7. 3 cloves of garlic, smash them and finely diced them.

8. Few slices of ginger cut them into thin strips.

9. Optionally, a few pieces of hot chilies. Diced them as well.

10. Another optional ingredient is needle mushroom. We call it Jin Zhen Gu (金针菇) in Chinese which means golden needle mushroom. The stem part is a bit fibery, you just cut that off and discard it. Divide the big batch of needle mushroom into these smaller pieces. I like to use them in the noodle soup is because they act like noodles. You don’t recognize them easily in the noodles but It will balance the doughy texture.

11. Everything is ready, let’s cook. Add About 2 tbsp of cooking oil. Follow up with the garlic, ginger, the hot chilies, diced onion, scallion. Stir them for a few minutes until the onion is a bit translucent. Add in 1.5 tbsp of tomato paste. Keep stirring until it is well combined. Then add in the diced tomato along with 2 tsp of salt. Salt will help to bring out all the tomato juice and the flavor. Cover it and let it cook on low heat for about 10 minutes.

12. The tomato should release a lot of juice and become like a soup. Pour in 3 cups of water. You can use stock but I only have water today and it will work just fine.

13. Bring it to a boil. Give it a taste to adjust the saltiness. Mine is perfect. Now you can add the noodles. This recipe is enough to serve 3-4 people so make sure you use 3-4 servings of noodles. Any type of noodles will work. What I am using is wheat noodles, the dry form. It takes about 8 minutes to cook through. You can try one to make sure they are fully cooked. Add in the needle mushroom. Mix it in. Follow up with the beef. Stir to separate the meat pieces. Once the beef changed color, gas off. You don’t want to risk overcooking it. The rest of the heat will complete the cooking process.

14. Now it is the time to add the final seasoning. Some sugar, up to your preference, I used 2 tbsp. 2.5 tbsp of lime juice. Everybody has a different taste, you want to find a perfect balance between sweetness and sourness. Give it a final taste to adjust the flavor. Garnish it with some scallion or cilantro and you are ready to serve. Enjoy！