SLOW COOKER PHO

SLOW COOKER PHO image

Number Of Ingredients 9

Ingredients

1.5 lbs of beef short ribs
1 medium sweet onion
2 inch knob of ginger
a couple small pieces of rock sugar
a small stick of cinamon
2-3 star anise
3 dried red plums
Pho Hoa spice tea bag (Yes I'm cheating!)
2 teaspoons of salt

Steps:

Split onion in half and remove outer shell. Place onions and ginger directly over flame on gas oven. Alternatively, put under broiler for 5 min or so. Get a good char on it. Bring pot of water to boil. Add salt and paraboil short ribs for 5 minutes. Skum and other nastiness will rise up. Dump all water and short ribs into a collander in sink. Rinse all the ribs with cold water and rub away any additional skum that is still on the surface of the meat. Add the onion, ginger, short ribs, rock sugar, dried red plums, salt, star anise and cinamon stick to the slow cooker and fill with water. Set on Low for 8-10 hours. Slice remaining half onion, chop cilantro and slice the scallions. Mix together or leave separate in case someone doesn't like one of the garnishes. Go to bed. Wake up in the morning. Remove/discard the onions, ginger, cinamon, plums, star anise. Don't have to be perfect as you will strain it anyways. Carefully remove the short ribs. They'll be fall apart tender. You can shred them or put them on a plate in the freezer for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes in the freezer, you can do thin slices of the meat to add to your pho. Strain the broth to remove as much of the impurities as you can. I used cheese cloth. You can use a fine mesh strainer. This step is not required, but it will make the broth much more clear. You can return the broth to the slow cooker or put it in a pot to bring it back up to near boiling temp. Add more salt or rock sugar as necessary. Put 1 spice bag into the pho broth. Leave in for about 15 minutes or so and discard the bag. Cook rice noodles per instructions. I have fresh rice noodles so it's just dipping in boiling water for like 15 seconds. Assemble the bowl. Rice noodles first, add some of the sliced/shredded short rib, garnish with onions, scallions and cilantro. Ladle on the broth. Serve with hoison, sriracha and limes (and fish sauce if you want more saltiness)