Vietnamese beef noodle soup, pho consists of complex flavours that only a four-hour broth can achieve. Note: This recipe requires a minimum of 4 hours cooking time so plan ahead! All measurements are approximate and season accordingly.
Spices and Aromatics
All Vietnamese supermarkets will stock the relevant pho spices, and some will also stock readily portioned pho spices that come with a cloth bag. If you are using a pre-made spice bag, I recommend adding more coriander seeds to your spice bag. For added depth, it is essential to roast your spices and aromatics in the oven or toast them in a pan.
Achieving Clear Broth
Some challenges that first-time pho makers will encounter are not achieving a clear pho broth. To ensure clear pho broth every time, it is crucial to clean your beef bones! This is achievable by soaking your beef bones in cold water for two hours, then discarding the water, and boiling the beef bones in a new change of water for 10 minutes to remove the debris.
Please do not feel tempted to increase the heat of your pot, this will cause cloudiness in your broth. Lastly, do not skip step 2 of the “Broth” section of the method. Skimming the scum is the most important part of achieving broth clarity.
Meat
Pho tastes best with three types of beef: beef meatballs (bo vien), beef brisket (bo tam), and rare beef (bo tai). I buy my beef meatballs at the Asian supermarkets in the frozen section. Beef brisket, can be purchased at your local butcher or supermarket. As for rare beef, at the butcher, I ask the butcher I am looking to cook “rare beef pho” or ask for “eye of round” and get it thinly sliced at the butcher.
Herbs and Garnishes
I highly recommend utilising all the herbs and garnishes listed in the recipe to achieve authentic-tasting pho. It is totally ok to omit herbs if it’s unavailable.
Authentic Beef Pho in 4 hours
Equipment
- Stock Pot
- Air fryer or oven
Ingredients
Broth and meat
- Bo vien (beef meatball)
- Beef brisket (approx. 5x5x5cm cube)
- Pho noodles (banh pho)
- 2 kg beef bones
- 2 whole brown onions
- 2 peeled French shallots
- 1/4 sliced ginger
- 3.5 L of water
Spice Bomb
- 1 piece Cardamom
- 4 pieces Star anise
- 1 pinch Whole cloves
- 1 pinch Fennel seeds
- 1 stick Cinnamon bark
- 2 tbs Coriander seeds
Garnish
- Sliced brown onions
- Green onions
- Coriander
- Culantro
- Thai basil
- Bean sprouts blanched in hot water
- Fresh chilli
- Hoisin sauce
- Lime or lemon wedges
- Ground black pepper
Instructions
Spices & Aromatics
- Crush (with a bat) cardamom, star anise, and cinnamon bark in a bag separately then combine all spices from the spice bag ingredient list in a spice infuser.
- Roast spices, ginger slices, 2 whole onions, and 2 shallots in the oven for 5 minutes at 225◦C. After 5 minutes, remove spices and continue to roast shallots, onions, and ginger for another 5-10 minutes until lightly charred.
- Soak beef bones in cold water for 2 hours and discard water.
- Starting from cold water, cook the beef bones from cold water. Once the water is boiling, cook the beef bones for another 10 minutes. Discard water
Broth
- Add 3500 mL of water in a big pot and turn on high heat. Add 2kg of beef bones.
- Keep on high heat for 15 minutes while simultaneously skimming off debris from the broth. Then reduce heat to a simmer. DO NOT feel tempted to increase the heat.
- Add roasted spices, shallots, onions and ginger into the broth once all debris is removed from the broth. Add 4 small chunks of rock sugar and 1 pho spoon-sized amount of salt.
- Quickly rinse raw beef brisket in cold water.
- Add beef brisket to pho broth and cook in simmering pho broth for 1.5 hours. Remove beef brisket from pho broth after the 1.5 hours. Do not cook beef brisket in pho broth for longer than 2 hours, this will cause the beef brisket to combine too tender.
- Place beef brisket in a bowl of cold water with ice.
- After cooking the broth for a total of 4 hours, turn off the heat.
- Slice cooked beef brisket into approx. 2-4mm thick slices.
- Before serving, taste the soup and gage how much fish sauce to put in. (About 1-2 pho spoons of fish sauce).
- Boil the beef meatball in the pho broth before serving.
- Serve pho with pho noodles, beef meatballs, beef brisket and garnishes.