Updated 06-19-19. There are three elements that make up a bowl of Vietnamese pho: the broth, the rice noodles and the toppings (meat, garnishes, etc.)
If you are a pho lover, you may be a fan of the noodles or of the way the meat, herbs and spices play together in your mouth as you slurp your pho to the last drop. Regardless, there's no denying that the pho broth is the most important element of Vietnamese pho. Pho broth is the soul of the dish. It is what makes the dish Vietnamese pho.
It's not a bowl of pho until the broth goes in.
Pho note: This article on Pho Broth is both a how to make pho broth and a philosophical look at the meaning of the broth in pho. If you are looking for the nuts and bolts of making pho, go directly to the latest Beef Pho Recipe infographic, or check out these 2 articles: Top Pho Bo and Pho Ga Recipes You Must Try Yourself and Quick Beef Pho Recipe with Quoc Viet Foods’ Pho Soup Base.
Giving Meaning to the Soul of Pho
Can you imagine Vietnamese pho without its broth? It is probably impossible to do so. You may try to cook up all kinds of soups, pour it in the bowl and try to call it pho. You may resort to be creative with different meats and adding new herbs and garnishing to the mix, but it's just not pho. The pho broth is what gives the soup its distinct character. There's not necessarily only one way to make pho broth, but a good pho broth must follow certain rules and standards.
In fact, the key to a successful bowl of pho is the creation of a good pho broth. Pho lovers judge the bowl of pho served to them in a restaurant by sipping the broth first without putting in any seasoning or garnishing.
I see many people (mostly non-Viet and younger Viet generation) dumping in sriracha and/or hoisin sauce into their pho as the bowls arrive at the table. My question is, don't they wonder how the broth tastes? Is it good or is it not good pho broth? If it's not good pho broth then maybe they should try a better place.
But I digress. If there's any doubt about the quality of a bowl of pho, just take a sip of the broth to find out. If the pho broth is good, we feel immediately at home; the familiar, the warm, the good, the satisfying. But if the broth is not up to expectation, the pho eating experience becomes labored, beside the fact that one is wasting the time and money with this darn bowl of pho.
You can be forgiven for serving undercooked or overcooked banh pho (the pho noodle). You can be forgiven for not having all the right meat types or garnishing. But mess up the pho broth and your pho is ruined. Conversely, serving a great pho broth will make up for your other shortcomings many times over. There is no one perfect technique for making pho broth, but with practice and attention to to basic techniques, one can create a very good broth, with the right pho taste.
How to Make Pho Broth
There is no single perfect technique for creating good pho broth.
Many Vietnamese say that the best pho you will ever taste is the one cooked by your own mother, grandmother or other matriarch of the family. Such person would have very strong preference of how good pho broth is made. These ideas and knowledge, in turn, are handed down from generation to generation. I can tell you, this is more of a myth than fact, but will be the subject of a different post.
For now, let's move on to making a good pho broth.
Oh one more thing: the following is more applicable for home made pho. For restaurant operation which must produce very large quantity of pho with consistent quality day in day out, the specific process, procedures, equipment and number of staff/cooks are much different, more demanding, and certainly a lot more involved than shown here.
Almost all pho recipes will have many common elements between them, from the ingredients that go into the broth to the length of time required in making it. Vietnamese culinary experts Andrea Nguyen's and Mai Pham's beef pho recipes call for the following ingredients:
- Yellow onions
- Ginger
- Marrow-rich beef bones and beef knuckle bones
- Additional beef chunks
- Star anise
- Cloves
- Salt
- Fish sauce
- Yellow rock sugar
Here's a generic process. Many recipes call for preparation using two stockpots of boiling water. The beef bones and chunks are parboiled in one pot in high heat for up to five minutes. This is to remove all the impurities on the outside of the beef. Andrea Nguyen recommends rinsing the bones in warm water before being transferred into the second stockpot, while Mai Pham says that it is fine to just transfer the bones and the chunks without rinsing. If you have room for 2 large pots, then use 2 pots; it will save you a lot of time while keeping your stock pure. But if you can use only one pot, then it will work too.
In any case, the second stockpot is kept at a simmer for an hour and a half, with any scum rising to the top skimmed out regularly. The spices are then added, either as they are or wrapped in cheesecloth. Before they are put into the broth, the onions and the ginger need to be charred in open flame. Mai Pham recommends toasting the star anise and the cloves lightly in a dry pan before they are put into the pot. Again techniques vary, but either roasting or charring will help release much more of spices' fragrance.
After the hour and a half has passed, the boneless beef chunks are removed. The remaining broth is allowed to simmer for another hour and a half or so. The pho broth is then strained and seasoned with fish sauce, salt and rock sugar. At this point, the pho broth should look clear and free from impurities. It is perfectly acceptable for it to taste strong and even salty at this point as well because the taste will be toned down once the broth is poured over the unseasoned rice noodles and meat.
The procedure described above is the most generally accepted way of cooking pho broth. But no two bowls of pho made from two separate kitchens ever taste the same, and techniques on how to make the broth vary from kitchen to kitchen. Some cooks, for instance, do not put fish sauce in the broth but instead leave it up to the guest to season it as he or she pleases. Some cooks also skip on adding beef chunks into the simmering broth and rely solely on the flavor of the dissolved marrow.
Note:
You should never let water evaporate completely to dry-out condition. If your pot dries out after a few hours of “simmering” then you’re probably boiling it the whole time, or don’t have enough water to begin with. You should be keeping an eye on the simmering and skimming the scum as needed. So just turn down the heat to have just a light rolling action in the liquid.
Most recipes should specify a yield amount, such as yield = 3 gallons. This means that at the end (or sometime during simmering as needed), you’ll need to add water to bring up to the yield amount. If this is the first time you make pho broth, then I suggest to follow the recipe first and see how it comes out, then make adjustments to fit your taste.
Time Is Essential in Cooking Pho Broth
Perhaps the one thing that turns people off from making their own pho at home is the amount of time it takes to create the pho broth. There are stories of people hailing from Vietnamese immigrant parents all over the Internet, which say that their own mothers have given up making pho because of the time needed to cook it. If they want pho, they all go to a restaurant that serves pho to fulfill their craving for the dish.
How long should it take for beef bones to simmer in order to come up with a good pho broth? Mai Pham and Andrea Nguyen both recommend at least three hours to simmer the broth, but there are other recipes that state that the beef bones must be boiled gently for six to eight hours. For restaurant-quality pho, the time required to simmer the broth can take up to 12 hours or more.
Why is it necessary for the boiling to take that long? The explanation is simple: It takes time for the marrow in the bones to dissolve into the water. You cannot force it with shorter but harder boiling because a hard boil distorts the flavor of the pho broth. The flavor of the marrow is the essence of the broth; it must be brought out gently and doing so takes time.
The time it takes to create pho broth is definitely worth it, though, and you will end up with a broth that is so tasty you will want to slurp up every last drop. Some people resort to buying so-called pho broth cubes or canned pho broth, but the taste is just not the same. It is thin and watery compared to homemade or restaurant-made pho broth. I know, I know. Those are just quick fixes for a quick pho but I just had to mention them.
Pho is not pho without its broth. The broth is the element that gives pho its life and soul. If you can enjoy the pho broth wholeheartedly, then the rest of the ingredients in the bowl will be enjoyable too.
@Kon: I think 12 hours is overkill! Did you keep adding water as you go, even at low heat? You must have lost all water from the broth and are left with just the fat and protein product. But I wouldn’t say it’s a total loss. Try adding water back to what your recipe called for, heat it up and see how it tastes. I hope you’ve already taken all the bones and other solids out.
so the brisket/flank is stored off and cooled at the end of the broth operation and then when the PHO is served portions are sliced and added back in ?
I have a few questions for you.
1. I was wondering if you know what cut of meat at restaurants they call well done lean meat? Is it chuck? Sirloin? Eye of Round?
2. How much meat do you think is necessary in a bowl of pho assuming you use 20 ounces of broth and about 5 ounces of noodles? 3-4 ounces seems about right to me?
3. I have seen restaurants that simmer the meats in with the pho for up to 5 hours. Do you think it is better to take them out sooner?
4. Do you prefer to have the rock sugar and fish sauce added to the broth for the entire cooking process or at the end?
5. What do you do to cool the meats so they do not brown when placed in the refrigerator?
6. When you refrigerate the broth, it is easier to remove the fat as it hardens at the top. I have noticed that the broth obviously doesn’t taste as good if you remove too much fat. How much do you like to remove?
7. What do you think are the best tasting meats for pho broth? I like oxtail in mine but the cost goes way up if you use too much. Sirloin, chuck and brisket are all in the $2.50/lb range and seem to produce a nice flavor.
@MOONROCK: Yes you are correct. At the end of the broth cooking, the meat has done its job to flavor the broth. You can slice it any time between then and serving, but many people slice it closer to service to get the freshest meat possible.
@Dave: Here goes:
1. “Well done” may be flank or brisket, but you can use anything really.
2. If you are selling your pho in a restaurant, then your meat portions depends on the size of the bowl, and on your food cost and profit margin desired. If you’re serving at home, then anything goes!
3. The simmer time for the meat depends on how tender you want the meat to be, and whether you have extracted flavor into the broth.
4. I do not have a preference, but I do have a recipe I follow. Whether or not you have your own recipe, rock sugar and fish sauce are used to flavor the broth, so if you add them near the beginning, then you will get those flavors in the meat also. If you add them toward the end, then less of those flavors goes into the meat. So it depends on what you want.
5. You’re assuming I remove the fat. I don’t because I like it in my pho. The question is: why remove the fat at all? That’s the good stuff.
6. Again, Dave, if you’re selling pho then you should look at your food cost and profit margin as part of your decision. Otherwise, use what you can afford, is what I would say.
Sounds like you’re trying to figure how to run a pho restaurant. If you need help then head over to fill out the pho consultation contact form to get some help. Hope the answers above helped.
Help! I’m trying like heck to enjoy pho, but my one and only time was a disaster. I live in New Orleans (which has a deep-rooted Vietnamese community) and I went to one of the longest-ruuning, highest-rated restaurants. The Banh Mi was okay, and the beef stew I sampled was pretty good, but the bowl of actual pho did not agree with me. The broth had very little flavor, and every now-and-then there would be a strong hit of an herb/ spice with a strong, lingering ‘sour-cinnamon’ flavor. Did I just get a bad bowl, or am I just not cut out for it? God knows I wanted to like it. I have friends that are addicted to it, and I went to one of the best restaurants I could find.
If I am not one cut out for pho, are there other Vietnamese dishes I should try closer to what I’m used to? I’m an American who appreciates Chinese, Japanese, and Thai food. As I said, Banh Mi and the beef stew I tried were successful experiments. Just wonderin what else I should try next time I go (this restaurant has an EXTENSIVE menu, so I’m sure whatever you recommend would have a good shot of being on there).
Thanks for any help!
@Mei: It’s unfortunate that your first bowl of pho was a bad experience. What you described may be a one-off bad bowl, if you say this restaurant is well known. Did you tell your friend(s) that there’s something “funny” tasting in your bowl? Or maybe even let them taste some broth themselves? Or you may have informed the restaurant that this is your first time, and your bowl doesn’t taste quite right. I’m sure they would have given you another bowl, or a cup of broth for you to try out, to make sure they didn’t serve you bad pho. Most Vietnamese restaurants are eager to attract new customers and this is totally within reason to expect a restaurant to treat a new customer. many restaurants would love to receive such feedback from customer so they can fix their own mistakes.
Other than that, I would say go try another bowl, maybe at the same place, maybe a different place. If you still don’t like it the second or third time around, then maybe pho is not for you. Having said that, I’m reluctant to conclude that pho is not for you, as pho is too easy to like in my opinion.
If you appreciate Chinese, Japanese and Thai foods, then there are many other Viet dishes that you will surely like. How about some other noodle in broth like hủ tiếu (which uses the same rice noodle) or mì (which is egg noodle), each with various meat and/or seafood toppings? How about any of the broken rice dishes ̣(cơm tấm) or bún dishes (vermicelli) with grilled meats? If you can share this restaurant’s name then I can look at its menu online and give you some suggestions. Let me know and good luck Mei.