Phở

Attention! This will take around 6 hours to prepare!

Preparation You'll need: A large pot (for the rice ribbon noodles) A medium sized pot (for the soup) A small pan 2 or 3 rather large bowls to serve the soup
Ingredients (for 4 persons) 2 thick (cross-cut) beef shanks, ca. 600 grams 3 marrow bones Ca. 400 grams beef fillet 1.5 litres water 2 small star anise 1 cinnamon stick 1 small onion 1 piece of ginger 3 spring onions (stem and leaves) 3 twigs Thai basil 3 twigs coriander 3 twigs mint 150 grams Mung bean sprouts 4 Thai chilis 1 small lime 4 Tbsp Vietnamese Fish Sauce 200 grams Vietnamese rice ribbon noodles
First steps Bring 1.5 litres water to boil in a medium sized pot. In the meantime wash the shanks and the bones, add to the water. Roast in a pan without oil (best would be a wrought-iron pan) the onion and the piece of ginger (only peeled, not cut small) until they start to get black patches. That will take a few minutes. When roastet enough, also add them to the water. Let this boil covered for 5 hours on low heat.
Intermediate steps After 5 hours add cinnamon stick and 2 star anise. Let it cook for another hour. Attention! Check the noodles to see if they have to soak for some time. You can get at that in this last hour, use the large pot. In the meantime you can prepare the rest: Clean 150 grams Mung bean sprouts, the herbs (3 stems of Thai basil, coriander and mint each). Pluck the leaves and roughly chop them. Cut into rings the 3 spring onions and 4 chilis. Wash the lime under hot water and cut it into eight pieces. Cut the fillet into very thin slices, you also might want to cut the slices into small pieces. After that last hour of cooking: Pour the soup through a sieve into a large bowl and set the broth aside again in the pot. Remove star anise and cinnamon stick. Separate the beef from the bones and remove the bones.
Last Steps Preheat the large soup bowls in the oven. Add salt to the soaking noodles and bring the water to boil. They are done as soon as the water starts to boil. If you're doing the soup for the first time, you could prepare all bowls completely and serve them. Otherwise I would suggest to put the ingredients into separate small bowls and place them on the table, so that people can do their own mix. Some don't like noodles so much or want less broth, others don't want so much of the cooked beef... Bring the broth to boil again. Put noodles, sprouts and the cooked beef into the preheated bowls. Add herbs and spring onions. Place the raw fillet slices on top and pour the hot broth over everything. Add some lime pieces and chili. You should place the bottle of fish sauce on the table, too, I for one like do add some more into my own bowl ☺
Keeping it in the fridge You can keep left-overs in the fridge, but it is very important to first remove all the lime pieces. They will make the whole soup very bitter!