It can be a pretty long complicated process, but here’s my recipe, tweaked to be Poon friendly:
For the soup you will need beef bones.
I prefer 3 parts leg bones (with meat or without), 2 parts oxtail, plus assorted bits and pieces of bone, tendon, cartilage and meats (chuck and brisket is the best – something that will hold up to long simmering), about 1 part each for a total of about 7 parts. The meat you can consume later and it will be quite lean.
Boil them in a large stock pot all together for 15 minutes, then discard the water completely, rinsing and cleaning the bones and meat to remove any scum buildup. They put them back in water and bring it back up to a boil.
While this is happening, turn broiler on high. Now normally I would use Onions, but since it can impart too much sugar into the broth. I would recommend using several bunches or stalks of green onions instead (esp bulb portion). Char up a couple fingers of ginger (with the skin on), and the bulb potions of the green onion, be careful not to completely burn the green parts up. We want a deep dark char, just on the surface, it should look almost burnt, but not cooked through. You can do this on a flame if you have a gas burner, just put down a wire rack over the flame and be very careful. On the BBQ works too.
After charring, add it to the stock pot. Add spices: Cinnamon stick, cloves, star anise, fennel seed, cardamom, coriander seed. A few pods of each, depending on your personal preference. Use whole spice, not ground ones, otherwise it will be gritty. There are prepackaged spice blends in Asian supermarkets too, but they are not as good.
Simmer away for about 5-8 hours (best is around the 6 hr mark or so). Remove the meats about 90mins-2 hours in, or it can dry out too much. Periodically skim the surface to remove the scum that forms on the top of the soup as you simmer. I usually will add fish sauce and some rock sugar at the end, but fish sauce is high in sodium, so use sparingly (we haven’t added any salt to this recipe yet, so it may be a bit bland at this time). Season towards the end of simmering with a bit of fish sauce and/or half salt. Some people like to add some white pepper too. Substitute rock sugar for your favourite sugar substitute, but only use a little bit. Alternatively you can leave it out completely, it will just be a more savoury soup.
After 5-6 hours you can remove from heat, strain and serve. It can be saved for use in other recipes later on as a soup or Asian beef stock. We usually serve with noodles, so actually the tofu shirataki noodles would be very good with this recipe, and thinly sliced meats that you cooked previously. You can also add thinly sliced raw meats to the broth right before serving so they are medium-rare. Chopped green onion and cilantro to finish off, and some hot sauce or siraracha if you like. Some people will serve with sprouts, or veggies, or thai basil, seafood works too, chicken…whatever you like. Very versatile dish.
Credit: Doug Poon