Black Pepper Beef Hao Fan

Tombee hates rice and I hate noodles. In order to be fair, I always alternate one day of noodles with one day of rice and so I'm always on the lookout for new noodle recipes. I saw black pepper udon on a blog and I decided to try making my own black pepper noodles, but with hao fan instead of udon. Hao Fan is a fresh flat rice noodle and comes in sliced sheets that are packaged. Usually when you purchase it fresh, it's quite hard because it's cold, so the best way to soften it is by steaming for a few minutes until the noodles are soft and pliable. Once soft, they are silky smooth and absorb sauces extremely well. Unfortunately despite its delicious taste, the noodles look quite ugly when mixed with the sauce and doesn't photograph well but I can assure you that despite the dodgy picture, the noodles are really delicious. The tenderness of the beef echoed the soft, smooth texture of the noodles and the slight sweetness in the beef from the mirin brought out the sweetness of the hoisin sauce in the black pepper sauce.


Cooking the beef with the snow peas and carrots



Black Pepper Beef Hao Fan

Ingredients
1/2lb beef, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon baking soda
900 gram package hao fan
1 1/2 cups snow peas
1 cup carrots, julienned
1 tablespoon oil

Marinade
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
1 tablespoon mirin
1 tablespoon cooking wine
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon cornstarch

Black Pepper Sauce
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
2 tablespoons kecap manis (indonesian sweet soy sauce)
1 tablespoon cooking wine
1 teaspoon mirin
2 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper

Directions
1. Marinate beef with baking soda for 15 minutes. Wash beef thoroughly of baking soda.
2. Mix marinade ingredients together and pour over beef and massage marinade into beef.
3. Bring a pot of water to boil and place steaming rack inside. Place hao fan on a heatproof plate and place on steaming rack. Steam for a few minutes until hao fan is soft. Set aside.
4. Mix sauce ingredients and set aside.
5. Heat oil in pan and add carrots. Cook for 1 minute, then add 2 tablespoons water and cover for a minute until carrots are slightly softened.
6. Move carrots to edge of pan and add a teaspoon of oil in the middle. Add beef and leave for 1 minute without stirring so that beef can brown. After one minute, stir beef around so that the second side gets browned.
7. Add snow peas when beef is 80% cooked and mix beef, carrots and snow peas together. Cover for 1 minute. Snow peas should be crisp and cooked by this time. If the snow peas are not cooked, add 1 tablespoon water and cover for another minute.
8. Add softened hao fan to pan and stir to mix noodles with beef and veggies. Add sauce and mix well so that noodle mixture is entirely coated with sauce. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.