Where the braised version of this trio ends with a thick pan sauce, the source here pushes the other way and asks for more water than you think you need, because the broth is half the meal. Frying the blanched beef first, and the tomatoes until they collapse, is what keeps a 40-minute soup from tasting thin.
Chinese home cooking · Soup
Tomato, Potato and Beef Soup for Cold Evenings
Beef is blanched, fried, then simmered with tomatoes, potato and carrot in a generously poured kettle of boiling water, so there is broth left over for the rice bowl.
- Prep20 min
- Cook50 min
- Serves4
- LevelEasy
Ingredients
| 500 g | beef , cut into chunks, lean is fine |
| 3 | tomatoes , diced |
| 2 | potatoes , cut into chunks |
| 1 | carrot , cut into chunks |
| 1/2 | scallion , cut into long sections |
| 3 | ginger slices |
| 50 g | peanut oil , less if the beef carries its own fat |
| boiling water , plenty | |
| salt , to finish |
Method
- Blanch the beef from cold water, lift it out and rinse in hot water.
- Cut the potato and carrot into chunks and the tomatoes into dice; cut the scallion into long sections.
- Heat the oil in a pot and fry the beef chunks over medium heat for a couple of minutes. With fatty beef use less oil; with lean, use all of it.
- Lift the beef out. In the remaining oil fry the scallion and ginger until fragrant.
- Add the tomatoes and fry until they soften and slump.
- Return the beef and fry two minutes more, then add the potato and carrot.
- Pour in boiling water, generously — the source warns against being shy here, since the broth is half the meal.
- Simmer about 40 minutes, until the potato is soft and the broth has taken on the tomatoes.
- Salt it at the end and serve.
Notes
- Salt goes in at the end, after the broth has reduced; salting early makes it hard to judge how concentrated the soup will get.
- Boiling water, not cold, keeps the beef from tightening up.
Ratios and technique checked against 平平安安多多 on Douguo (番茄土豆牛肉汤～蔬菜和蛋白质一锅出喽！配米饭和面食都很适合呢). The method here is written by Stellaok; the photograph is the source kitchen's, credited on the image above and linked back to the page it came from. No recipe text is reproduced.