Talk:Beef noodle soup

Is this an encyclopedia or a cookbook?

Yes. - Nunh-huh 03:23, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Difference of opinion on the part about puting it in the boiling water for one minute.

You could instead put the raw beef in cold water and then bring the water and the beef into a boil. Then throw out the water, use a different pot or clean the pot and remember to rinse the beef in cold water then, follow the other instrustions. The reason for this is to remove the blood AND some of the stench of the meat. You should do this to all meat product when you are cooking something without strong spices to cover up that stench. Well, thats my opinion, of course, if that stench is what you are looking for then don't do it. Some people call that the "taste" of the meat. If you never tried then taste the differece ~ espcially with goat meat. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 141.155.107.61 (talk) 23:10, 5 December 2006 (UTC).[reply]

On a side note

Don't use any high quality beef for this noodle because of the long boiling time of the meat, it doesn't matter which part you use, all will be tender. In fact poor quality beef with many toughparts might even taste better using this method. For this reason this could even be called peasant food (no offense intended)

A hint on the soy sauce in this soup

The soy sauce in this soup is Dark soy sauce and is not put there for taste(use salt). The reason is to color the meat dark since most of time the beef used is of low quality (therefore it dosen't look edible if it were light) Also, sometime ginger is used abusively to cover up the stench of the poor quality meat.

A caution to the credibility of the historical contents

The main ingredients (or could be the only ingredients)are water, beef ,and noodles. This noodle soup usually uses low quality beef and could be serve with no spices and no beef therefore it could be made easily by peasants and serve to peasents of low rank even in ancient time for a rather long duration. And since it is so easily made and it is food for low rank peasents and slaves it would not enter into historical documents readily after invention.

No offense to you, but the "peasant food" story is more or less an over-simplification. Firsdt of all, beef is not part of the traditional Chinese diet, until the beggining of the last century, it was eaten by Hui people (beef noodle was invented by them as well.) Secondly, peasants don't eat meat period. If there are any meat, it's likely to be pork, not beef (cattles are valueble work animals, it's not eaten. Besides, there are very few places in China where cattles can be grazed.) Thirdly, it's mainly comsumed by urban people (especially students and workers.) I have yet seen one rural family eating it as their "traditional meal". -130.126.75.181 (talk) 04:31, 24 February 2008 (UTC)cecikierk[reply]