Sichuan Beef Noodle Soup

This used to be my standby lunch when I was living alone in graduate school and I almost forgot how good and satisfying it is. Here I used the small beef shank meat for its tenderness after cooking and the plentiful creamy tendons in the meat. Pieces of this meat are first parboiled for a couple three minutes to clear the of the blood. Sugar is caramelized to light brown in some oil before plenty of garlic cloves, ginger and Sichuan peppercorn are added for a moment. Hot Sichuan bean sauce 豆瓣酱 is then added to cook until no more water in the pan. Toast in the beef, coat well then add water to cook until tender. If you add a lot of water you have the soup ready for the noodles, but if you add less water the soup would be very strong so when you use it you have to add more water. Either case, cook some nice wheat noodles, add some pressed garlic, chopped scallion, some vegetable and sesame oil, and a really nice bowl of noodle is made.