Home-made Pho!

After over thirty years of eating others’ delicious pho cooking, I finally got off my arse and with the guidance and assistance of my lovely girlfriend managed to cook my own pho, and I must say, it tasted quite reasonable for a first go, and certainly can only be improved upon. For my reference and for you to steal if you like, but please, if you somehow make money from this recipe please send me some royalties! You know all the sides/garnishes, and if you don’t, rice noodles, beef sliced thinly (eye fillet is best), spring onion and coriander chopped, onion sliced thinly, bean sprouts, chopped chilli, lemon juice, and some thai basil. Use fish sauce for seasoning, and if you have some hoisin sauce for dipping the beef in, all the better.

1. Boil water, bring it to a really high bubbly boil, and add the beef bones/ox tail (one kilo más o menos) to the water for ten minutes.
2. Discard the water, clean the bones, and clean the pot.
3. Add the bones back to the pot with cold water (you can estimate how much water you need to suit the strength of the flavour you prefer).
4. Add the spices to the water (in a muslin bag if possible):
5. 1x stick of cinnamon, 2x star anise, a few cloves, 1x black cardamon.
6. Cook up an onion (skin on), and a bit of ginger (unpeeled) toasting the sides, get them a bit charcoal-y.
7. Peel the onion and ginger and add to the broth.
8. Bring the stock to the boil.
9. When the broth is boiling and bubbling hard, start skimming the scum out.
10. Bring it down to a simmer, and let it simmer for a few hours (or if you have a thermal pot even better, let it sit in there over night).
11. Add abouth one and a half tablespoons of garlic salt (or some kind of nicely flavoured salt) for seasoning (don’t worry we will still use fish sauce later).
12. Remove all the stuff, and there’s your broth!

Ingredients for pho

My serve of Pho (bowl too small, not enough broth)