Beef Brisket Clear Soup

Prep time: 30min
Cooking time: Between 40 min to 4 hours, depending
Number of servings: 4-5

Group A

• 1. Beef brisket x 1kg, fat mostly removed, cut into stew-sized pieces.

  2. Cinnamon stick x 2

  3. Cloves x 7

  4. Nutmeg x 1 tsp

  5. Carrot x 2 medium, cut into rounds

  6. Potato x 2 medium, cut into about 8 pieces per potato

  7. Maple syrup x 0.5 tbsp (or sugar)

  8. White pepper powder x a few shakes

  9. Yellow onion x 1, cut into large pieces for soup

  10. Tomato x 1

  11. Woh Hup concentrated ikan bilis paste x 5 tbsp

  12. Beef broth x 1 litre

  13. Water x 1 litre

  14. Cabbage x 800g, roughly chopped

Group B: Blend this into a spice paste

1. Garlic x 10 cloves

2. Ginger x 1 medium knob

3. 1 large yellow onion

4. Small red onions (also called shallots) x 6-7

Group C: Garnish

1. Fried shallots

2. Spring onion

3. Chinese parsley

1. Blend the Group B ingredients into a spice paste.

2. Saute the spice paste, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves until fragrant, about 1-2 minutes.

• My Tefal pressure cooker is a multi-cooker, so I saute this in the pressure cooker itself using the "Saute/Sear" function.

• If you don't have it, just saute in a pan and transfer it to your pressure/slow cooker.

3. Add all ingredients except Group C ingredients into the pressure cooker.

4. Close the lid and slow cook on high (around 90 deg C) for 3-4 hours.

• If you're in a hurry, you can skip this step and pressure cook immediately, but do pressure cook for longer, like 30-40 minutes or so.

• I find that the taste is richer if the meat is slow cooked then pressure cooked, however.

5. Half-wilt the cabbage in a pan to shrink it. Set aside.

• This is done so that the cabbage can fit inside the pressure cooker.

• If you are just slow cooking this over an open flame in a large pot, you can skip this step.

6. Add the cabbage into the pressure cooker, close the lid and set to pressure cook for 15-20 minutes.

7. Taste the soup. Add salt and maple syrup / sugar to taste if necessary.

8. Garnish with Group C ingredients. Serve hot with a bowl of rice.

Shouldn't I blanch the brisket before cooking it? Other recipes seem to suggest doing that.

Yes, yes you should. But Chops is lazy and doesn't find that blanching it really does anything for this particular recipe. ;p

Can I use those cubes of beef sold as being for beef stew instead?

For the love of all that is tasty, please never buy those little "beef stew cubes" to make any kind of beef soup. My experience is that they tend to turn into hard little rocks when stewed. Use beef chuck if you can't find brisket. Chuck is a bit more expensive than brisket though, and the increased cost doesn't add anything to this particular soup.

Why do you remove the fat from the beef brisket?

I dunno about you, but yours truly absolutely loathes skimming oil off soup. If you leave the fat on, there's going to be a thick layer of fat floating on top of the soup. If that doesn't bother you, or you love drinking oily soup (why?!), then feel free to leave the fat on. :3