She uses 2 parts beef bone with one part of pork neck bone or chicken (thigh or just bone). The beef bone is for the smell of beef and the pork or chicken is for sweetness. She cleans the bones with warm water, puts them in a big pot with a lot of water, adds salt and cooks for 8 hours. She cooks on high at first and skims all the floating stuff out, then turns the heat to medium.
She adds 1 big onion, 3 inch long piece of ginger, 1 4-5 inch stick cinnamon, 5-8 star anise and 1/2 tablespoon whole clove. My son likes the broth sweet, so she adds rock sugar (which has a defferent taste than white sugar). She says a lot of MSG and rock sugar will make it taste like Laotian and Thai style.
She says they have small bags of spices for Pho at the Asian market. When she uses that she still adds fresh onion and ginger. She adds a pinch of MSG when the broth is done.
She suggests that the onion, ginger, cinnamon, star anise and clove can be baked in the oven until they smell good before adding to the broth. I've never seen her do this, but it must be like "blooming" the spices in a skillet like I've seen on some cooking shows.
Adding a bit of MSG at the end will make the broth taste Asian style.
Fish sauce will darken the broth and make it taste sour.
Don't cover the pot while cooking and skim all the stuff floating on the surface to make the broth clear.
I hope this gives you some ideas. Let me know how it turns out.
= new reply since forum marked as read
