Chinese Beef Stew

Here's the recipe for the Chinese Beef Stew we had last night. It was very good, but I made the mistake of adding the rice noodles the night before, rather than cooking them separately and serving the stew over the noodles. The result was that the noodles sucked up all the liquid from the stew and I had to add more broth the next day, diluting what was Chinese about the flavor. This one counts as both a success and a mistake.

• olive oil (next time I might want to try sesame oil) [note]
  
• pound and a half of beef stew meat, cut into 1-inch pieces
• chopped green onions
• minced, peeled fresh ginger
• 1 teaspoon aniseed (anise seed) crushed
• 6 fresh garlic cloves, minced
• pint of beef stock
• couple ounces of soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons dry sherry
• 3 or 4 teaspoons of chile paste with garlic
• 3 or 4 cinnamon sticks
• 1 pound of cubed peeled turnips
• 1 or 2 cups of baby carrots, cubed
• half pound of fresh baby spinach

1. Brown beef in olive oil in Dutch oven.
2. Remove beef to a bowl, leaving browned oil behind.
3. Add chopped green onions, crushed aniseed, minced garlic. Saute.
4. Stir in half of beef stock, scraping pan to loosen browned bits.
5. Return beef to stew.
6. Add soy sauce, brown sugar, dry sherry, chile paste, and cinnamon sticks.
7. Simmer for an hour.
8. Add turnips and carrots, simmer for another hour. (Don't add spinach yet.)
9. Remove cinnamon sticks -- they'll have unravelled and expanded.
   
10. Leave sit overnight.
11. Next evening: add the rest of the beef stock, reheat, stir in half of spinach.
    
12. When stew is reheated and spinach is wilted but still green, add the rest of the spinach to the top, but don't stir it in.
    
13. When top spinach is wilted but still green, serve over rice noodles.