Name: Bún Bò Huê
Yield: Serves 6–8
Cuisine: Vietnam
Ingredients: 2 spring onions (scallions), very finely chopped; 3 spring onions (scallions), green part only, thinly sliced; 250 ml (9 fl oz) vegetable oil; 2 lemongrass stems, white part only, very finely chopped; ½ tablespoon sugar; 1 small handful of coriander (cilantro) leaves, roughly chopped; 6 lemongrass stems, pale part only, roughly chopped and bashed; 1½ tablespoons chilli oil; 1 teaspoon chilli flakes; ½ tablespoon salt; 200 g (7 oz) chà lua (Vietnamese pork loaf), thinly sliced; 200 g (7 oz) purple cabbage, finely shredded; 500 g (1 lb 2 oz) caster (superfine) sugar; lemon wedges, to serve; 100 g (3½ oz) Chinese water spinach, finely shredded; 1 small handful of round leaf mint, roughly chopped, and Vietnamese mint leaves, to garnish; 30 g (1 oz) annatto seeds; 3¾ tablespoons salt; 400 g (14 oz) thick rice vermicelli noodles; 1 tablespoon fish sauce; 2 beef shins; 2 pork hocks; 3 pig’s trotters, halved lengthways; 400 ml (14 fl oz) fish sauce; 2 kg (4 lb 8 oz) beef bones; 2 onions, halved; 1 pineapple, peeled, roughly chopped; 5 kg (11 lb 4 oz) pork bones; 1 red onion, thinly sliced; 10 garlic cloves

Preparation info

Serves
6–8

Difficulty
Complex

Appears in

Mr Hong

By Dan Hong

Published 2014

About

I can’t live without noodle soups... they are my everything. Take a nourishing broth and some protein, add noodles and you have one of the most satisfying things you can eat. From Japanese ramen to Malaysian laksa and har mee, Cambodian hu tieu nam vang and Cantonese wonton noodle soup, every Asian country has at least one iconic noodle soup. For me, the king of all noodle soups is Bún bò Huê, a spicy beef concoction that originated in Hue, central Vietnam. The broth hits all