Vegetable Beef Noodle Soup

Looking down at a bowl of beautiful homemade Vegetable Beef Noodle soup provides me with more than a promise of something delicious to eat – it gives me a feeling of warmth, home, and thankfulness that something so wonderful is so easy to make.  As a hearty main dish soup it makes a meal – nutritious, economical and satisfying to the most voracious of appetites!

Vegetable Beef Noodle Soup Recipe: (serves 4 as main dish)

Ingredients:

• 3 1/2 cups low-sodium, low-fat beef stock
• 3 1/2 cups water
• 1/2 to 3/4 pound good quality beef steak (sirloin strip is good)
• 1 14 to 16 ounce can diced tomatoes
• 1 cup medium egg noodles
• 2 medium fresh carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
• 2 ribs celery, strings removed, halved and diced
• 1 large yellow onion, peeled and diced
• 1/2 cup frozen peas
• 1 large clove garlic, peeled
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• Several grates black peppercorn
• Kosher salt to taste

How to make the Vegetable Beef Noodle soup:

Begin the soup by searing the steak in a very heavy, hot skillet (cast iron is ideal) on both sides. Cook to no more than medium rare – it will finish cooking later- and set the steak aside to rest for at least ten minutes before slicing for the soup. When slicing for the soup, cut thinly across the grain into bite sized strips.

De-glaze the pan used to cook the steak by adding 1/2 cup of the water to the pan while still hot, being careful of the steam, and scrape up the bits left from searing the steak. Add this to a large soup kettle, along with the rest of the water and the beef stock.

Add the diced onion, celery, sliced carrots, garlic, bay leaf and thyme to the soup pot. Simmer this for 20 minutes, until the celery and carrots are very tender.

Add the tomatoes, bring back to a simmer and continue to cook for another ten minutes.

Stir in the cup of medium egg noodles, cook for seven minutes then add the sliced steak and the frozen peas. Taste for salt and pepper and season accordingly.

Continue cooking at a bare simmer for three minutes more or until the noodles and peas are tender.

Soup is done – enjoy!

IMPORTANT NOTES:     Experience has taught me that while substitutions in my core recipe are sometimes necessary because of what’s on hand,  the best vegetable beef noodle soup relies on the ingredient choices I prefer to make :

• A good quality steak, though it may cost $2 or so more a pound, is worth buying for the 1/2 to 3/4 pound used. A tough steak will not become less so in the soup, no matter how you slice it. The result is going to be a disharmonious chewy bit in the soup that will distract from the overall result.
• Egg noodles have a slurpy soft quality that  is lovely in the soup, very different than a semolina or durum wheat pasta. The medium size egg noodles, vs. fine or broad sized noodles are the best choice because as the soup sits they will not swell so much that they overwhelm the soup, but big enough to not be lost in the soup either.
• Tomato is an important taste element to the soup, but a puree, stewed or crushed tomato will produce a drastically different texture and flavor balance.  When using fresh tomatoes, be sure to peel them first and remove most of the seeds.
• I am not a fan of the bagged baby peeled carrots that have taken over the carrot section in the produce departments of local supermarkets. As a produce buyer, I’ve been to those California farms that produce them, and they are not the sweet little carrots people believe them to be (and pay more/pound for!)  They are the big bad ones, tumbled and scraped down to remove rot, cracks and sometimes their oversize that would otherwise make them unsaleable. Clever of the industry but an honest, regular carrot is going to be the best choice here.