Houblonchouffe's breakfast soup

1. Slice up half an onion like for French onion soup, and 4-5 big garlic cloves, then saute in butter until soft and starting to brown (I start this process in my small soup pot)

2. Add 2 cups beef stock (we use Better than Bouillon and make it fairly strong)

3. Throw in a cinnamon stick, 3-4 whole star anise, 3-4 bay leaves, 1 T grated ginger

4. Simmer 1-4 hours, depending on what time you want to eat

5. In a separate container, rehydrate some shiitake mushrooms, like 6 or 7 of them if they're big, and save the rehydrating water

6. Slice up an 8-oz piece of decent beef, very thin

7. Use the mushroom water to thin out/add volume to your soup, however much you like, slice up the mushrooms and add them to the soup

7.5 Fish out the star anise, cinnamon, and bay leaves

8. Bring the whole thing to a boil

9. Add an amount of dry ramen or Chinese noodles, however much you like, and let them cook

10. VERY LIGHTLY poach two eggs and put them in the bottoms of two soup bowls

11. In the last minute or so of cooking the soup, add the sliced beef to it

12. VERY GENTLY ladle the soup over the egg, making sure to avoid bursting the yolk

13. Eat the soup. Leave some noodles and the egg yolk for last. Pop the yolk over the last of your noodles, slurp up.

We dress this up with scallions, sliced fresh jalapenos, and chili paste so it's almost eye-wateringly spicy, but the base recipe isn't spicy at all, so you do you!

Oh it also definitely benefits from extra umami, so fish sauce/anchovy paste/soy does not go amiss