Bún bò Huế

As tradition built it

Serves 6 to 8. About 3 hours.

Ingredients

• 2 kg pork leg bones
• 700 g beef brisket
• 700 g pork knuckle
• 20 pieces Huế-style chả
• 10 stalks lemongrass, bruised, plus 100 g minced
• 100 g garlic, minced
• 100 g chilli, minced, plus 100 g green chillies
• 200 g onion
• 100 g ginger
• 200 g spring onion, minced
• 200 g coriander, minced
• to serve water spinach stems, banana flower, fresh bún
• 80 g Huế mắm ruốc
• ½ tbsp salt
• 2 tbsp rock sugar
• 3 tbsp fish sauce
• 1 tbsp annatto oil

Method

1. Roast the pork bones with bruised lemongrass, ginger, onion and chillies for 30 minutes.
2. Blanch the bones, beef brisket and pork knuckle, skim, rinse.
3. Simmer the combined bones, meat and aromatics on low heat until the meat is tender, 2 to 3 hours.
4. Dissolve the mắm ruốc separately: roughly 3 tbsp in cold water, strained, the clear liquid added to the pot gradually and adjusted to taste, since salinity varies by batch.
5. Season with salt, rock sugar and fish sauce.
6. For the chilli oil, fry the minced spring onion, coriander, shallot, garlic and lemongrass in oil until fragrant, then add the minced chilli with annatto oil.
7. Serve the broth over bún with sliced beef, chả, water spinach stems and banana flower, finished with the chilli oil.

What a modern chef changes

The seasoning treated as a process with checkpoints, not a single addition

Rung 5

Method

1. Season at a minimum of three separate points: once as the mắm ruốc liquid goes in, once as the broth reduces, and once immediately before serving, tasting and adjusting each time rather than seasoning once at the start.
2. Dissolve and strain the mắm ruốc carefully every time, since its salinity genuinely varies batch to batch; treat this as a variable ingredient requiring judgement, not a fixed measurement.
3. Never prepare this broth fully ahead and simply reheat it for serving. The final seasoning checkpoint is timed to the broth's exact state at that moment and does not survive holding, which is exactly why a made-ahead version served later tends to taste flat.