Vietnamese Hue-Style Beef Noodle Soup (Bún Bò Huế)

Bun Bo Hue (Hue style beef noodle soup) is one of the famous soup from Hue city, the imperial city of Vietnam (1802-1945). I don’t know the period when it existed and for what occasion. I still even wonder whether the first Bun Bo Hue ( beef noodle  soup) has  only beef or has already many varieties at the beginning ?

Very different from Pho (beef noodle soup) used with some basic spices (star anise, cinnamon, clove scent …) which is so-called Chinese spices, Bun Bo Hue is used very Vietnamese spices such as lemon grass, fine shrimp paste, chilli powder …

For someone who never tastes this soup find that’s difficult to make this dish and wonder whether it’s really good or not. I’d like to hear somebody’s first experience of it. Please feel free to speak out your mind.

Otherwise, I prefer telling a little about its origin before giving the recipe.

We easily find out its origin: Hue in its name. Yes, it comes from Hue, a very small city in Central of Vietnam. 

You can see this soup everywhere in Hue city, especially in the morning even at 5 a.m. Hue people are use to eat this soup for their breakfast. It must be a very surprise for Western people who have their breakfast with light and sweet food such as chocolate milk, cakes …. Vietnamese in general or Hue people in particular rarely use sweet food for breakfast. They prefer salty food for all day. They only have sweet food for their desserts.

As Hue people, they easily find Bun Bo Hue surrounding their location. If you are once in Hue, you can see Bun Bo Hue in every street, and if it’s a long street, each 200 or 300 meters will have a Bun Bo Hue kiosk or a Bun Bo load.  

Their kiosks are very simple with some small tables and chairs (for all mobile Bun Bo Hue loads which are carried from here and there never have such furniture), a stock of beef broth on a stoven with lowest heat, a full basket of compound salad ( including beans sprouts, finely sliced banana flower, young lettuce), some piles of big bowls, another big basket of white rice vermicelli or rice noodles. You can also see lime wedges, chopped fresh chilli, chopped chilli marinated in nuoc-mam (fish sauce) and an important Hue chilli purée.

When you will be served a bowl of this noodle soup, you have to make sure that can help teardrop-falling-down spicy while eating it. Never taste it in Hue city if you’re not sure your level of eating spicy food, even it’s a lightly spicy Bun Bo Hue.

You can find the simple Bun Bo Hue in Hue city which has only beef and pork, as well as much special one which contains beef, pork or pork knuckles, pieces of congealed pig blood or of congealed duck blood, or of congealed ox blood, chả cua ( a special mixture of chopped meat, crab meat and spices ), ox tendon or raw sliced beef (which is parboiled in hot broth).

You can go to Bun Bo Hue kiosk not only for eating this beef vermicelli soup but also for a “xáo” bowl (raw sliced beef parboiled in hot broth with herbs)  being with bread.

Furthermore, Bun Bo Hue in Hue city is very different from other places. Its taste and its content changed along with  the  availability of each national region as well as of overseas.

People use round rice noodles (bún or sợi bún) or vermicelli for Bun Bo Hue while Pho uses flat rice noodles.  The famous round rice noodles in Hue are made from Vân Cù village. Original “sợi bún” (in Hue) is small or medium in size but going southward you will find these noodles much bigger with much browner broth and strong smell of “mắm ruốc” (shrimp paste).

Fried chilli purée of Bun Bo Hue is the main element to make it different from Pho, too.

Now, I will introduce you my recipe and hope that it’s not so complicated to realise.

Ingredients :

 For making stock : (for 4 – 6 servings)

- Pork and beef bones ( the more they are, the better the stock is)

- Pork-pie or cut side of pork

- Beef shank : two small ones

- Congealed pig blood or chả cua, chả lua : optional

- 6 stalks of lemongrass (smashed if possible to have more flavor)

- 2 onions

- 3 shallots

- 2 tablespoon of salt

- 1 tablespoon of sugar

- 1 or 2 tablespoon of nuoc mam

- 1 tablespoon of mam ruoc ( stirred well with a 2 cups of water and let it 1 or 2 hours for depositting sediment, use only the clear liquid)

- 1 teaspoon of pepper

For making chilli purée :

- 1 clove of garlic, chopped

- 50gr chilli powder and paprika 

(or annetto seeds if you want the broth less spicy)

- 1 smashed stalk of lemongrass cut into 4 pieces

Method :

Preparing rice noodle:

- Boil the dry rice noodles until they become tender (make sure that you always keep an eye on it and stir it often to avoid an overcooking)

- Drain them with a slotted basket, divide them into each personal part to avoid them tie together, then set a side.

Preparing chilli purée :

- Put a small pot or pan on stove with medium heat. Add a cup of vegetable oil, 4 small smashed pieces of lemongrass and chopped garlic. Stir it and cook it over medium low to lowest heat till turning yellow, add chilli powder and paprika (optional) to to have nice red color.

- Remove all the pieces of lemongrass stalk

Making  stock :

- Wash pork and beef bones ( and pork knuckles: optional) with salt and tablespoon of vinegar as clean as possible then rinse them. 

Put them in a pot (or stockpot) with boiling water and a tablespoon of salt. Bring to a boil one more time. Finally, drain the water and put them in a basket. Rinse them  under the running hot water, then cold water.

- Put all (bones, meat …) in stockpot then fill with 2,5 liters of water and boil. Add onions, shallots, smashed stalks of lemongrass, salt, sugar and the clear liquid of the mixture of mam ruoc.

You will see all the impurities rising on the surface, skim and remove scum as much as possible to make the broth clearer.

-  Simmer with medium-low heat for 2 ot 3 hours depending on the size and quantity of the bones. For pork-pie or cut side of pork, 1 hour and a half or 2 hours is sufficent, you can take them off and set aside. Whole beef shrank or sliced beef shrank need more time to be tender.

-  After 3 hours of cooking, we can fish all out  except for the broth.  Add chilli oil ( extract from fried chili purée) to the broth and bring it to a last boil.

- We keep only pork and beef meat, put them into a pot covered with cold water for 20 minutes to avoid the meat darkened and to make them cooler to slice – (Slicing the beef shrank against the grain to optimize its  tenderness).  Keep them in a refrigerator if you don’t serve them immediately.

Serving:

- Fill each bowl with rice noodle, sliced beef shanks, pork …  and sliced onion. Pour this spicy broth and ganish with corindar and chopped green onion.

- Serve it immidiately with garnish herbs (mint, bean sprouts, baby lettuce, banana blossom, chopped fresh chilli …) and lime juice from lime wedges.

Like all kind of beef soup ( Vietnamese Pho or French “pot-au-feu”, Bun Bo Hue will make you feel healthy after the first bowl, healthier after the second but pay attetion to the third one. Cholesterol alert !

Enjoy cooking and bon appetit !

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