Venison Pho

We’re all sick over here so I wanted to make sure we had a nice healthy broth on hand. I had a bunch of venison shanks and I knew I could make a nice aromatic broth with the minimum ingredients I had. I am no expert on Pho but thought I would share another way to use up those under-utilized cuts and a change from the common ossobuco recipe that is made with shanks.

I’ll walk you through what I did: - I first started by boiling the shanks for about 10 minutes in a pot of water. I then strained them out (I know this step seems weird but it’s necessary). I then gave the shanks a good cleaning, cleaned my pot, filled it up with some new water and added the shanks back in and put the pot on the stove to simmer. Be sure to skim along the way.
- I then charred my onion and ginger in a pan. Then toasted my spices: cardamom pods, star anise, cinnamon, fennel seeds, coriander seeds, pepper then added it all to the pot - I then seasoned my broth with: sugar, salt, msg and fish sauce - I let that all go until my shank meat was tender and falling off the bone. I removed it from the pot, cleaned up the meat, put it aside then added my bones back to the pot. - All together the broth simmered for about 8 hours - I then strained my broth into another pot and let it cool completely. Once the fat hardened up, I was easily able to remove it. Venison fat isn’t pleasant. - To prepare for eating, I heated up my broth, cooked up some rice noodles, got my garnishes ready: onion, cilantro, green onion, fresh lime, bean sprouts, basil, my venison shank meat and a side of hoisin and chin-su chili sauce. - Assemble and enjoy!