SO PHO(-king) GOOD

Thanks to my sister and my sister in law, I made this pho using this recipe in Chinese. Despite having pho twice since I started eating beef a few months ago, I would say this was a success. I now understand where the flavor of pho comes from the roasted spices like star anise, cinnamon etc. Making pho isn't hard, but definitely time-consuming. Once you have all the ingredients, you basically just dump them in the pot and leave it on boil for 6 hours (which you can't leave the house for fire safety reasons). ALSO, a big pot is important!!! The morning of making pho, I decided to get a 17 quart pot. I was so glad I did or else it wouldn't be worth your time to have so little soup after 6 hours!!!!! And if you want, getting bigger bowls would make the whole pho experience more enjoyable.

The recipe is from: http://mlivingblog.blogspot.com/2017/10/pho-vietnamese-noodle-soup.html?m=1. My sister has made one from a recipe that was in English and there was huge difference in flavors. That's why I always use recipes in Chinese when I am making Asian dishes.

beginning- dump all the ingredients in

6 hours later. Almost 1/3 of water was lost during the boiling

If the soup was hot enough, cooking the fresh raw beef slice is a good choice

Adding in the rest.
Tendon is the best!!! I love the tendon! 

ENGLISH TRANSLATION

For the broth:

Beef bones – 3.5 kg

Beef brisket – 500g

Beef tendon- 2 pieces

Ginger, sliced - 80g

Yellow onions, sliced in half – 3

Fish sauce – 5 Tablespoon

Sugar rock- 50 g

Salt – 3 tablespoon

Water- 7.5 L

Spices (original recipe recommends putting in a herbal strainer bag, but I didn’t and it worked just fine)

Fennel seeds – 1 Tablespoon

Coriander seeds – 1 Tablespoon

Cloves – 6 pieces

Star anise – 8 pieces

Black cardamom – 1 seed (I could only find the crushed ones from Mariano’s so I used 1 Tablespoon)

Cinnamon – 1 stick (8 cm)

Cilantro – 2 pieces

Ingredients for the pho (however amount you want)

Rice noodles (S size)

Broth

Beef slices 

Beef tripe

Tendon (from the broth)

Meat Balls

Bean sprouts

Lime

Slices onions

Green onion

Cilantro

Basil

Steps:

1.       In a pot of boiling water, boil beef bone, brisket, tendon at high heat for a few minutes. Remove the water and clean the ingridents

2.       At the same time, slice onions in half ( leaving the skin on) slice the gingers. Bake these in a toaster oven or oven at 350 F for 5 minutes.

3.       Using medium heat, roast all the spices on a pan

4.       In a pot, add 7.5 L of water, put in all the semi boiled beef bone, brisket, tendon, roasted onion, ginger, spices, fish oil, yellow sugar, and salt; boil at high heat. Once it starts boiling, turn down the heat to low for 6 hours

5.       2.5 hours later, take the beef brisket out

6.       4 hours later, take the tendon out.

7.     6 hours later, your soup is ready to be served! You can add the rest of the ingredients however you like.