Authentic Vietnamese Pho Bo soup

Authentic Vietnamese Pho Bo soup
Recipe Number: 1645
Contributor: tfoster2000

Serves:
Calories Per Serving:
Preparation Time:
Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients:

Cooking Instructions:

Blanch the bones before boiling and throw away the blanching water. This will prevent that yucky beef scum from forming on the top of your soup.

I use leftover steak bones but you should use beef bones with lots of marrow or oxtail, put it in about 2 quarts of boiling water. Add sliced ginger root and onions that you have charred on the grill for a minute or two. Add about half teaspoon each of cardamon, corinder, fennel, anise, 3 cloves, and a stick of cinamon, and about a table spoon of fish sauce, and salt to taste. Boil for an hour or two. You can also add a little sugar, too. Taste the broth to season with some extra salt, fish sauce, or a pinch of any of the spices listed above.

After an hour or two, boil some rice noodles in a separate pot. When they are done put them in a bowl, ladel your beef broth over the noodles and add fresh cilantro, jalapenos, green onions, mung sprouts, basil, and/or mint -- what ever you can get.

The traditional way of serving it is adding some very thinly sliced raw flank steak before you add the broth but I cook it over the grill and slice it thin just to make sure it's cooked properly.

Serving Suggestions:

Some people like to add siracha sauce, hoisen, fish sauce, and freshly squeezed lime juice from a lime wedge to the broth as a condiment.