Beef Noodles Soup (Phở Bò Việt Nam)

Beef noodles soup or "Phở Bò Việt Nam" is a most special dish in Vietnam. Phở has many famous Vietnamese authors writing about it. So, perhaps I do not need to describe  how to make or eat  Phở, at least not the traditional Vietnamese Noodle Soup. Previously, I had introduced Chicken Phở, because this is a dish that I usually eat and is also another way to cook Phở that does require precise ingredients and preparation like" Phở Bò". Last week, my niece, Quyen, and her close Canadian friend, Trinh, visited me. When Trinh told me that in Canada, meats are very expensive, I decided to treat them with " Phở Bò" instead of imposing my usual healthy habit of preparing fish, chicken, and vegetable dishes. Their visit also provided me an opportunity for me to prepare this dish in memory of my father. I want to contribute a recipe of  beef noodle soup from my own family. Back then in Vietnam, my parents owned a noodle shop, named "Phuoc Thuy".  Although at that time I was very young, the image of my dad sitting on the kitchen floor cleaning the beef shin bones, tripe, and the beef flanks have always been fresh in my mind for many years. According the procedure followed by my Dad, the beef shin bones must be soaked in salted water and vinegar overnight, and then the bones had to cook in boiling water at least 5 to 10 minutes so that all the impurities in the bones are reduced. After the initial boiling, the bones then have to be cleaned thoroughly again with lime juice before they went into another clean pot.  My father took another step to separate the bone marrow because when cooked, bone marrow tends to opaque the broth. If this happened, the broth would not be saved because my dad said the water was muddy and would not produce a tasty Phở. Because "Phở Bò Việt Nam" is one of the Vietnamese signature dishes, I believe that each Vietnamese family will have its own specific recipe to make this dish with beef or chicken. I am a person who likes to cook simple, healthy, but delicious food. Cooking techniques should not be so complicated, so I try to stay away from making this beef noodle soup and is not something that I would recommend for daily meals unless a big pot of the beef broth is made and then the broth is frozen for later use because the broth is complicated, not the spices, to turn the broth into Phở. Making Phở for my niece and her friend brought back memories from Vietnam where the noodle soup, "Phuoc Thuy", was the main source of income for my parents to raise their 10 children. Through the efforts of my father, who struggled every day to wash many beef shin bones and spent many sleepless overnights caring not to excessively boil the broth so that the beef noodles soup would retain the clear broth which always had a yellow sheen from the bone marrow , the fat adding in the last minutes of cooking. If my dad was still alive and prepared this soup with American beef bones, he would not have to work as hard because encrusted bones and meat in the American grocery markets are very clean. However, this is my family's recipe, but I will not be too fussy when preparing this dish, so I use the beef bones from the ribs of a cow, which are from one of my friends who owns a cattle farm. It is much easier for me to walk down memory lane here and also to reduce some of the steps of cooking Phở Bò. My niece is very fastidious in food issues, but it looks like she approved and complimented my beef noodle soup. Therefore, I will share this recipe in my blog once again just to appreciate the hard work of and my indebtedness to my parents.

Ingredients:
Broth ingredients:
5 lbs of beef bones, short ribs, or shin bones with marrow
2 lbs flank steak 
2 lbs oxtails 
2 large white onions
4 oz. fresh ginger
4 shallots,
1 lb. daikon, peeled and cut into large chunks
3 parsnips, peeled and cut into chunks
2 oz. rock sugar
Salt to taste 
Spices bag ingredients:
10 star anise
10 cloves
1 cinnamon stick
2 tbs coriander seeds
1 tsp cardamom seeds
Accompaniments:
1 lb. beef sirloin, thinly sliced
2 to 3 beef balls for each person 
1 lb. rice noodles or Banh Phở Tuoi (serves 4 to 5 people)
1 large white onion, very thinly sliced
2 scallions, sliced
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
2 cups bean sprouts (serves 4 to 5 people)
1 or 2 hot chili peppers, Jalapeno or Thai hot chili, sliced
1/4 cup hot chili sauce (Tuong Ot)
1/4 cup hoisin sauce
1 lime, cut into wedges
Fresh herbs, such as Thai basil, regular basil, or mints, separated into leaves

Fish sauce on the side for dipping

Directions:
To make beef broth:
If using shin bones with marrow, then soak the night before the bones in a pot with salt and vinegar. I soak the short ribs with salt and vinegar for a few hours. Bring a pot of water to boil and add the bones, oxtails, if using, and flank steak. Cook for 10 minutes. Drain and wash very well the bones and meats under running cold water. Clean the pot very well, too.

Add 10 quarts of water to the pot. Add bones, flank steak, and bring to boil. Turn the heat down before the broth boils over. Start skimming the water’s surface to remove the foam and some of the fat. Continue to skim off the impurities that rise to the surface. Add daikon, parsnip, and rock sugar and season the broth with quite a lot of salt.

 

In the meantime, char the onions, ginger, and shallots directly over the burner or under the broiler until they release their fragrance. Clean them off a little and add into the broth.

To make the spices bag:
Place all the spice ingredients onto a saute pan without oil and fry until fragrant (I put all these spices into a tool that I have and works perfectly for me with this Phở recipe, but you can use a piece of cheesecloth to create a bag for all these spices). Add the spices bag into the broth in the last hour of cooking.

Check doneness of the oxtails and meats after 1 to 1 1/2 hrs. of cooking (they should be tender). Remove meats and slice thinly. If cooking the beef broth with bones, it takes 4 hours to finish (the bones that I use here do not take long).
Drain the broth and place these spices bag into the broth and simmer for 45 minutes to one hour. Remove the spices bag and drain the broth through a fine sieve or through cheesecloth. Now the Phở is ready to serve. At this point, you can add fish sauce to the broth, if needed. Put enough of the broth back into the pot to serve for 4 to 5 people and then bring the broth to a rolling boil. Freeze the rest of the broth for later use, if any is left over
Bring another 4 cords of water to boil. If using fresh noodles, it should take a few seconds in the hot water or just follow the instructions if using dry noodles.

Assembling a bowl of Phở:
Divide the noodles among 4 to 5 soup bowls. Top noodles with a few slices of flank, sirloin, and beef balls. Ladle the broth directly over the meat (beef sirloin will cook instantly). Garnish with chopped scallions and cilantro. Serve with hoisin sauce, hot sauce, fresh herbs, and fresh jalapeno or hot chili
On the side, thinly place onions on a plate. Add white vinegar and mix well (optional).