Vietnamese Beef Rib, Sweet Dry Cured Sausage Soup with Tapioca Thread Noodles


This soup is like the Vietnamese soups that I love to eat in Chinatown at Las Vegas, Nevada.  "Pho" is one of my favorite restaurants there and it is open 24 hours a day.  This soup is a great one! 
     Recipe:  Roaste a beef short rib with a splash of soy sauce and water in a baking pan in a 300 degree oven.  When the short rib becomes fully cooked, set it aside.  Boil some very bland, light, clear colored vegetable broth in a sauce pot over high heat. 
     Add a little splash of soy sauce and a few drops of sesame oil.
     Add a small squeeze of lime juice.
     Add a little bit of minced ginger and minced garlic.
     Add sea salt and white pepper. 
     Add an oven roasted beef short rib and boil for a little while to infuse the flavor. 
     Add a few thin bias slices of Chinese sweet pork sausage.  (There is no substitute for this kind of sausage.  The flavor is like a dry cured, 5 or 7 spice powder and sugar seasoned sweet sausage.  They are available in Chinese markets.) 
     Lower the heat on the soup to medium. 
     In a separate sauce pot, boil some tapioca thread noodles in salted water. 
     After you start the noodles cooking, get these ingredients ready to add to the soup:  A few quartered lengthwise cut baby bok choy, a few bias cut green onion pieces, a few whole trimmed snow peas, thin sliced daikon radish and julienne sliced Bermuda Onion. 
     When the noodles are almost half way done cooking, add the vegetables to the soup.  The soup and noodles should finish cooking at the same time. 
     Ladle the soup into a large soup bowl. 
     When the noodles finish cooking, drain off the water.  Place a pile of the tapioca thread noodles in the center of the soup. 
     Place a few large sprigs of whole fresh Thai basil on the edge of the soup.  (The basil will cook in the hot broth when the soup is eaten and they add a very refreshing flavor!) 
     This is a broth soup that is beautiful to look at and to eat!  The flavor of the Chinese Pork Sausage is unbelievably great!  The beef rib is tender after simmering.  The thin sliced daikon radish and vegetables are al dente and still slightly crisp to the bite.  The tapioca thread noodles are interesting to eat with chop sticks too.  Yes, this is a delicious chop stick and spoon soup!  Yum!  ...  Shawna