All that time and work just for this little bowl of finished product? Yup.
I usually make "cheater" pho broth using commercial stock, consomme, bouillon and fresh vegetables and herbs, and it's pretty tasty, but it ain't REAL pho broth.
Time to dive into serious broth mode: This will be a TL:DR ramble and not my usual short form, because in this case, it's more about the details and the why.
I call it Vietnamese Grandma Style because that's who you really want making your broth: Someone wise, experienced and patient, that understands everything about it. That nice little old lady in the Pho restaurant, you know the one, that makes the broth every day. She knows perfect broth and makes it look almost easy.
This might be something not for all the time, I got shin bones at the butcher shop and it was TEN DOLLARS for 4 pounds, but we're trying to make this the best. That did clean out my protein budget, but I bet vietnamese grandma can work with this.
Research indicated we need to parboil the raw soup bones, roast, and THEN go to the slow cooker.
Put the bones in a pot, water to barely cover, and simmer for half an hour. Discard cloudy cruddy water, and roast bones in a HOT 450F oven for a good hour or even two, until nice and dark, even scary dark, and the marrow shrinks down inside.
I roasted two medium onions, a head of smashed garlic cloves and lots of medallions of ginger for the last 15 minutes in with the bones, trying to get them to a char point. Gas grill might be the better way.
After that, everything into the pot, with new water to barely cover. Now for fun aromatics: Peppercorns, cilantro stems, 3 star anise, 4 bay leaves, cloves, any hearty herbs like rosemary or thyme, then to the spice cabinet for whatever else you like. I added ground coriander and garam masala, along with a tablespoon of brown sugar, and two teaspoons of salt.
It's Friday evening, see you Sunday morning. They say when the bone starts crumbling a little then they've done the work and it's past time to cool down.
It's Sunday morning! I turned off the heat when I went to bed both nights and back to low during the day. Plenty of carryover heat this morning.
I use a skewer to poke out the precious marrow, and macerate it on the cutting board and put it back into the soup for a bit. That'll make another round of cruddy scum on top, which I skim off most with a ladle.
Final final seasonings: A tiny bit of dried shrimp powder, a few dashes mild fish sauce, or possibly shrimp chili paste (we need a touch of that subtle umami fish-funk to mysteriously and magically bring out the flavor, and spicy heat to taste), then final salt and pepper and what have you. In my case what have you is a shot of soy sauce and a dash of worcestershire. Also a bit more fresh ginger, Wishing I had a fennel. I want this to be a gingery sinus-clearing broth. Also two tablespoons of rice vinegar to bring up the sour.
We're done, time to strain!
Strain the veg from the broth, then strain again with cheesecloth, for clearer broth. Then refrigerate after it cools down, to solidify the fat on top for easy removal and let solids settle.
This is way easier and way more expensive than I thought: Boil, roast, crockpot, this takes very little actual cooking, just patience waiting it out.
Oh yeah: I learned you can bypass this long, traditional process if you have a pressure cooker. That cuts it down to like two hours! Need pressure cooker.
* Don't forget to ask the butcher to saw the bones in half for a better fit into the pot, like I did.
* Get those plastic bag crock pot liners at the store, so no dreaded scrubbing of the days-solidified crud in the pot. Easy!
Tasting cold: It's silky, has depth and complexity, and is very rich. This would be for sipping from a small cup by itself. I will use it as a very good "starter" for pho broth. Will I do this often? Probably not, it's a lot of production for not a lot of product, and I can get the same essential product (gelatine) from canned consomme. We'll see how it goes over in pho broth.
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