Tendon-rich beef shanks with the marrow safely hidden in the bone are simmered in water seasoned simply with fish sauce and peppercorns, and served with noodles and the rich broth in which the shanks had cooked.
This is from 2019 when we were lucky enough to source beef shanks that had more tendon than meat. They were about the same size too — rather small which made me surmise they came from a young animal or animals.
How does one get beef shanks with more tendon than meat? Shank is taken from the leg. If the shank is cut from the upper part of the leg, you get more meat with tendon woven in. But if the shank is cut from the lower part of the leg, the bone is surrounded with more tendon and much less meat.
That’s how the shanks looked after two hours of simmering. I hope you can see from the photo the proportion between meat and tendon. If your shanks are meatier, that’s okay too. Some people do prefer that ratio. Whether there’s more meat or more tendon is not really the important thing. What’s crucial is that by the end of cooking time, they should be so tender that the fall off the bone without much prodding.
As for the noodles, flat egg noodles were used here. But that’s not a must. The noodles don’t have to be flat and they don’t have to be made from wheat. You may use rice noodles or shirataki or just about any Asian noodle.
Beef tendon and bone marrow noodle soup
Ingredients
- 3 beef shanks
- 1 whole onion
- 1 whole garlic
- ½ teaspoon peppercorns
- fish sauce
- wide rice noodles for three prepared according to package directions
- ¾ lime cut into three equal portions
- cilantro
- sliced scallions
Instructions
- Place the shanks in a pot. Boil for 10 minutes until the scum rises.
- Throw out the water; rinse the beef and the pot.
- Return the shanks to the pot, refill with water, add the onion, garlic and peppercorns, season with about four tablespoons of fish sauce and simmer for at least two hours. Taste occasionally and add more fish sauce, if needed.
- Drop the noodles into three bowls.
- Place a beef shank in each bowl and ladle in hot broth.
- Squeeze the juice from a quarter of a lime over everything in each bowl, garnish with cilantro and scallions, and serve at once.
