P
Chinese · Hong Kong
Beef Offal Noodle Soup — Hong Kong Style (牛雜湯麵)
Hong Kong's beloved street food of mixed beef offal (stomach, tendon, intestine, lung, heart) slow-simmered in a spiced curry-style broth with daikon, then served over egg noodles or alone as a soup. The offal-daikon broth is intensely savoury from hours of cooking — each cut contributing different collagen and protein compounds. This is a culturally significant Hong Kong street food associated with night markets and working-class culture.
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I
The Market List
The benchmark for each ingredient, and who stocks it near you. Tap a stockist to go straight to the product.
The offal
300 g
beef honeycomb tripe (stomach)
trimmed of excess fat
Not yet stocked in British Columbia
300 g
beef tendon
cut into 5 cm lengths
Not yet stocked in British Columbia
200 g
beef intestine
turned inside out, scrubbed clean, cut into 5 cm lengths
Not yet stocked in British Columbia
200 g
beef lung
squeezed repeatedly under running water until water runs clear
Not yet stocked in British Columbia
200 g
beef heart
trimmed of valves and sinew, cut into thick slices
Origin · PeruNot yet stocked in British Columbia
The broth
3 litres
cold water
Your own market
4
star anise
Your own market
10 g
10 g
dried tangerine peel
soaked in cold water 10 minutes, drained
Not yet stocked in British Columbia
8
fresh curry leaves
Not yet stocked in British Columbia
60 ml
soy sauce
500 g
daikon radish
peeled, cut into 4 cm rounds
Not yet stocked in British Columbia
To serve
400 g
fresh Hong Kong egg noodles
or serve the soup alone
Not yet stocked in British Columbia
Each tap is counted, so the stockist sees the demand Provenance sends them.
II
The Method
1
Clean each offal piece thoroughly and separately. Scrub the intestine inside and out under cold running water. Squeeze the lung repeatedly until no blood remains. Trim the tripe, heart, and tendon. Place each type in its own pot of cold water, bring to the boil separately, blanch for 3 minutes, then drain and rinse under cold water. The blanching water must be discarded — a clean smell after blanching signals the offal is ready to proceed.
2
Place the blanched tendon and tripe into a large pot with 3 litres of cold water. Add the star anise, sand ginger, dried tangerine peel, curry leaves, and soy sauce. Bring to the boil over high heat, then reduce to a steady low simmer. Cook, partially covered, for 2 hours. The broth will deepen to a dark amber; the tendon, when pressed, should still offer resistance at this stage.
3
Add the blanched intestine, lung, and heart to the pot. Continue to simmer for a further 1 hour. This is where the dish lives or dies: the tendon must become completely gelatinous — it should yield to the slightest pressure with no rubbery resistance — and the broth must be intensely savoury, thick with collagen, never thin. Taste the broth; if it lacks depth, remove the lid and reduce at a slightly higher simmer for 20 minutes before proceeding.
4
Add the daikon rounds to the pot. Simmer uncovered for a final 1 hour. The daikon is ready when a chopstick passes through each piece without resistance and the rounds have taken on the deep colour of the broth, signalling full absorption of the offal-spice liquor.
5
If serving over noodles, cook the fresh egg noodles in a separate pot of rapidly boiling unsalted water for 1–2 minutes until just tender, then drain. Divide the noodles among warmed bowls. Ladle portions of mixed offal and daikon over the noodles, then pour the broth over generously. The surface of the broth should carry a visible sheen of collagen.
III
Quality Hierarchy
01
Reserve — Offal sourced from a single grass-fed animal, butchered to order; broth built over multiple days in the manner of specialist Hong Kong cow offal shops, where the pot is never fully emptied.
02
Estate — Fresh (not frozen) offal from a known butcher; dried tangerine peel aged at least one year; whole dried sand ginger and fresh curry leaves sourced from a Chinese or South Asian grocer.
03
Market — Mixed offal from a reliable market butcher, frozen tendon thawed overnight in the refrigerator; standard dried spices from a Chinese supermarket; fresh daikon selected for firmness.
04
House — Pre-cleaned packaged tripe and tendon; dried curry leaves substituted for fresh; daikon added without colour differentiation — an adequate working version that lacks the accumulated depth of a specialist pot.
IV
Sensory Tests
◇Smell. After blanching, each offal type should smell clean and neutral — any persistent barnyard odour signals insufficient cleaning and the piece must be scrubbed and blanched again.
◇Sight. After two hours, the broth turns dark amber and the surface carries a light collagen sheen — pale, thin broth at this stage indicates insufficient offal or too high a heat driving off flavour.
◇Touch. The tendon yields completely to finger pressure with no rubbery resistance — this is the definitive test of sufficient cooking time, at least 3 hours total in the broth.
◇Sight. The daikon rounds absorb the broth colour fully, turning from white to deep ochre — pallid rounds indicate the final hour was too short or the heat too low.
◇Where it lives or dies. The tendon must be completely gelatinous and the broth must be intensely savoury and thick with collagen — a thin or under-cooked pot cannot be recovered at the table.
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VI
What to Pour
A lightly chilled Cantonese chrysanthemum tea or weak pu-erh cuts through the richness of the offal broth without competing with the spice base; for those who take alcohol with street food, a cold, low-bitterness lager in the style of Hong Kong draught serves the same function.
The whole pairingPillar VII
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Where the dish comes from and how it came to be — on every recipe.
Enter · from $49 a year
Sourced through Provenance