Crock Pot Vietnamese Beef Bone Broth and Pho Recipe!

I never thought I'd make it this far with bone broths.  I had tried for years (without a crock pot/slow cooker) to re-create that amazing Pho broth you can only find at restaurants, with no success.  Finally, I did a little research, and looked into making bone broths in a crock pot, which for busy and chronically ill people like myself, is the only way you are going to have TIME to make a bone broth (unless you do not have a job, and you can tend to bone broths all day, which is LIKE a full-time job, so I have just learned).

Before we get to composing the artwork-from-scratch that is Pho, we must make a mean Vietnamese-style Beef Bone Broth first.  It looks like a lot of work, but if you have your ingredients nearby, and pots and pans out, there is nothing too complex about this.  I would also advise multi-tasking.  I will explain...

Ingredients for Vietnamese Beef Bone Broth:

• Approx 2 lbs of beef bones (it is more common to see beef bones packaged for this very purpose, but if you don't see this in the meat section at the grocery, just speak to the butcher.  They likely have a buncha bones they can bring out for you by request).
• 1 yellow onion, cut in quarters/or sixths.
• 1 medium claw of ginger (approx 3" long), sliced
• 2 cinnamon sticks (*this is very important to getting this stock tasting excellent)
• 3 whole star anise (*this is very important to getting this stock tasting excellent)
• 3-4 whole cloves
• 1 cardamom pod (sadly, I did not find cardamom at the grocery the day prior, it is preferable to have this, but I made this broth without, and it still turned out awesome- if you have it, use it!)
• 1 TBSP apple cider vinegar (to get the most outta the bones, more on this later)
• 2 TSP whole coriander seeds (I could not get this either, so I used ground coriander instead)
• 1 1/2 TBSP fish sauce
• 1 TSP sugar
• Approx 8-9 cups of water (this was the maximum amount that would fit in my crock pot!)

INSTRUCTIONS FOR MAKING THE BROTH:

The reason I failed countless times making particularly beef bone broths in the past is because I never took care of getting the 'random stuffs' that boil from the bones out of the water before making the soup, and would end up with 'goopy bone soup' that would go to waste.  

Get out a medium to large stock pot.  Throw the bones in.  Fill the pot up with water until the bones are entirely submerged in the water, and start a rolling boil- boil the bones hard for at least 10 minutes, until you see all the weird fatty bubbly stuff come to the surface.  Only then can you turn off the stove, and dump out that messed up not-broth water, and rinse off the bones a few times, placing them in the crock pot once they are status post boiling and cleaned off.

(pictured above is the boiling of the bones, and the 'goop' boiling to the surface you will be dumping out!)

(pictured above are the cleaned/boiled bones!)

While you have been doing this whole boiling-of-the-bones thing, you should toast those spices:

Take the coriander, cinnamon sticks, cloves, and star anise- put them in a small frying pan on low to low-medium heat and toast them to really bring out the flavors (takes a few minutes).  Once done, add these toasted spices into the crock pot along with the cleaned/boiled bones.

Once you have thrown the toasted spices into the crock pot, put a dab of cooking oil into the frying pan and add the cut up onion and ginger, making sure to cook them on low to low-medium heat until browned, and again, once done doing this, throw the browned/cooked onion and ginger into the crock pot as well.

Once you've got your boiled/cleaned bones, toasted spices, and browned/cooked ginger/onion in the crock pot, it is time to add the apple cider vinegar, to get as much out of those bones as possible, as well as then adding 8-9 cups of water (depending on size of crock pot/slow cooker), and then adding a TBSP to 1 1/2 TBSP of fish sauce, and 1 tsp sugar.

(pictured above is what this all looks like in the crock pot at the start of your broth-making session)

Try to do this either in the morning before work, or even better, prepare this late in the evening, and let the broth make itself in the crock pot overnight! Set the crock pot on the Low setting, and cook for at least 8 hrs.  I personally let mine cook for anywhere from 10-12 hrs.

(pictured above is what all of this looks like after 10-12 hrs of cooking on low setting in the crock pot)

Get out a large container in which to store the broth, and put a strainer over it.  Once the crock pot has cooled down enough for transfer, pour the crock pot broth mixture over the strainer to strain out all the stock bones/large whole spices/onion/ginger.   You will be left with the very fragrant Vietnamese Beef Bone Broth:

If you haven't run away yet, here is the easy add-on recipe for Pho.  The most important thing is making the broth right.  The second most important thing is merely having the ingredients you need/that can work to make this soup.

Ingredients For Making Pho:

• The stock you just made 
• Rice noodles (my personal favorite are Annie Chun's Brown Rice Maifun Noodles!)
• Meat/chicken or fish of some kind.  My biggest cheat here (since I rarely have time for anything) is to use Brat-Hans Spicy Cilantro Chicken Sausage, sliced up in place of flank steak- since all you need to do is heat it up in the broth and it does not require freezing flank steak and meticulously thinly slicing it.
• A plate of stuff for the Pho-plate including: A bunch of fresh cilantro, a bunch of preferably Thai Basil (or 'Holy Basil') though regular Basil will work here if that is all you have, fresh mung bean sprouts, hot green peppers/hot peppers, and some lime wedges.  On the side, feel free to also have Sriracha sauce, Hoisin sauce, and gluten-free Soy Sauce/Tamari if you want, as well as adding fish sauce to broth for taste as needed.

To Make Pho Out Of the Broth:

Take however much broth you need from the big batch (if not using it all at once), heat it up in a medium to large pot, and throw in the approximate amount of rice noodles you will need for the amount of servings you are cooking for (eye it, it is fine).  Bring the stock + noodles to a soft boil for approx 2-4 mins max, then just keep the heat at low; heat up the already-cooked/refrigerated spicy cilantro chicken sausage (or equivalent easy-to-add-to-soup meat source) by throwing it into the hot broth and noodles in the pot.  Meanwhile, prepare/arrange your Pho-stuff-plate:

And just like that, you have some home-made Pho from scratch!!  Enjoy!! :D