Kitchen appliances and utensils
- hob;
- pan with a lid for the broth;
- a pan for cooking rice vermicelli;
- long tongs or chopsticks;
- skimmer;
- knife, cutting board;
- plates for ingredients;
- colander;
- portioned bowls for serving;
- scoop.
Ingredients
- Beef Brain Bones - 400 g
- Beef Pulp - 200 g
- Water for the broth - 1.5 liters.
- Onions - 2 pcs.
- Chives - medium bunch
- Ginger Root - 50 g
- Shallots - 2 pcs.
- Licorice root - 2 slices
- Anadye - 3 stars
- Cinnamon Sticks - 2 pcs.
- Fish sauce - 2 tbsp. l
- Salt, ground pepper - to taste
- Rice Vermicelli - 250 g
Step cooking
- The basis of the real Fo Bo is a properly cooked broth. For the broth, brain bones are taken. They are put in a pot of cold water and put on fire. When the water boils, pour it out. Rinse the bones, put it back into the pan and fill it with fresh water. Dip the beef pulp and raw peeled onion into the broth. While the broth begins to boil, let's deal with spices. We rinse the ginger root and, without peeling, we cut diagonally thin plates. Fry ginger right on the gas burner. To turn ginger over, we will use kitchen tongs or chopsticks.
- Fry shallots also fry on the burner. We will do the same with three stars of star anise, licorice root, two cinnamon sticks. Wash the fried spices and roots and put in the broth. Remove the foam that appears in the pan with a slotted spoon, and cook the meat, bones and spices over low heat for 1.5 hours. The result is a rich golden broth with an incredibly aromatic spicy smell. Salt it and add 2 tbsp. l fish sauce.
- While the broth is cooked, prepare rice vermicelli. Place it in a pot of water, wait for it to boil and cook until tender.
- The finished vermicelli should be thrown into a colander, rinse thoroughly under running water and leave to drain in a colander.
- We clean the onion head, finely chop with half rings and pour cold water.
- We cut the middle bunch of green onions as follows: cut off the white parts from the bunch, put them aside for now, and chop the green ones finely. Crush the white parts of the onion with a knife along.
- Pour the water from the onion half rings.
- We take out the finished beef from the broth and cut into very thin slices. The broth itself is left to languish over a very slow fire. In the second traditional variant, Fo Bo is cut into thin slices not cooked, but raw beef. With a combined feeding method, raw beef is cut as thinly as possible. Then the sliced pieces are cut several more times and are pressed through with a knife from above. It turns out a kind of chopped ground beef.
- Now we start serving. After all, Fo Bo soup is important not only to cook correctly, but also to serve correctly. Heat the rice vermicelli well, put it in the bowl. Lay on top slices of boiled beef, and on it - raw minced meat. Sprinkle everything with green onions, and load 4-5 white parts of the onion into the broth for 5-10 seconds. Add ginger (2-3 pieces), cut into long bowls, to the bowl, sprinkle with onions in half rings.
- We scoop up a hot broth with a ladle, together with the white parts of the green onion and pour it into the bowl. Under the influence of temperature, ground beef instantly changes color and becomes cooked.
- The combined method of serving is popular in Vietnam, but for European cuisine, the preferred option is only with boiled meat. The serving is the same as in the combined version: the vermicelli is heated, placed in a bowl, covered with slices of boiled beef on top, sprinkled with onions in half rings, fresh ginger, green onions. The whole composition is poured with hot broth with boiled white parts of green onions.
Video recipe
To well master all the intricacies of cooking and serving different types of Fo Bo, watch the video recipe. The video shows the entire cooking process, gives options for serving with raw, boiled meat, and a combined method.