To Eat At Someone Else's Table: Suzanne's Bún Bò Huế

My twelfth guest of To Eat at Someone Else’s Table is Suzanne Nuyen, also known as Bun Bo Bae! Like many food-friends of mine these days, I connected with Suzanne over Instagram and have admired her food and bakes for awhile now. Looking at her food, you can tell how much love and appreciation Suzanne pours into the process of cooking. Not to mention that her food photography is bright, beautiful and eye-catching! Suzanne shared with us one of her favorite Vietnamese dishes - Bún Bò Huế. If you couldn’t already tell, her blog name is a play on words of this dish, so you bet this spicy Vietnamese beef noodle soup was an absolute delight to make and eat! Learn more about Suzanne and her connection to food in her interview below.

Interview with Suzanne

1. Tell us about yourself!

   “Hello, I'm Suzanne! I'm Vietnamese American, and I was born and raised in the Chicagoland area. I later went to school in Manhattan, studied abroad in Paris and then ended up in D.C. where I've been since 2017. I'm currently working at NPR and pursuing a masters degree at Georgetown. 

   Cooking has always been how my mom and I prefer to spend our time together. As a kid, I'd hang around the kitchen hoping to get a slice of jicama or other snack to munch on while my mom made dinner. As I got older, I was recruited to do more and more in the kitchen. Now my parents look forward to visiting me so I can cook for them! 

   I started Bun Bo Bae in 2019 as a way of sharing the recipes I grew up enjoying with my family. There are some delicious well known dishes served at Vietnamese restaurants, but there's so much more to Vietnamese cuisine, and I want to showcase the family style cooking that I am used to eating every day.”

2. Tell us about this dish. What is it & where do its origins lay?

   “Bún Bò Huế is a spicy beef noodle soup that originated in the Huế region of Vietnam. It literally translates to "Hue Beef Noodles." You can pronounce it "Boon Baw Hway." Huế, also known as Vietnam's Imperial City, used to be the capital of Vietnam. Dishes originating from here are said to have been cooked according to the tastes of the royal families at the time. I may be biased because my mom's family is from Huế, but I personally think the region has the best Vietnamese food by far!”

3. Do you have a special memory associated with this dish? Why is this dish special to you?

   “This dish is my mom's specialty. Vietnamese noodle soups are a labor of love. Often, you have to slowly simmer bones and other cuts of meat in order to get the rich broth needed for the soup. Because of this, noodle soups were usually a weekend treat. In Vietnam, noodle soups are often eaten for breakfast instead of dinner, so I have fond memories of digging into a bowl of Bún Bò Huế right after church on Sundays. My mom is a noodle soup master, and we would eat Phở and other soups as well, but Bún Bò Huế has always been my favorite because it's a dish from the region of Vietnam that her family is from. You'll notice that I love Bún Bò Huế so much that my blog name, Bun Bo Bae, is a play on my favorite dish!”

4. What inspires you to cook and/or bake?

   “Feeding people is my love language. A good home cooked meal can bring people together in ways nothing else can. Growing up, even when we were at our busiest, my family would try to at least have one meal at the table a week. It was when we could catch up, joke around and let loose a little. My mom and dad both have a lot of siblings, so I have a LOT of cousins and aunts and uncles. Our large family gatherings have always centered around food, so I really connect food with family.”

5. What’s your favorite spice to cook with and why?

   “This isn't a spice, but I my favorite ingredient to cook with is fish sauce! It adds such a depth of savory flavor to everything. It's a very common ingredient in Vietnamese recipes, but my secret is that I put a splash of it in almost everything for that hard to place savory flavor. It's my mom's secret ingredient in her red sauce.”

6. Do you have anyone you look up to in the culinary world and why?

   “I really loved Anthony Bourdain. He was the first celebrity I cried over when he passed. The only other celebrity whose death made me cry has been Chadwick Boseman. Bourdain was always so adventurous with what he ate, and he treated every place and ever person he visited with curiosity, compassion and kindness. You don't find people like him on TV very often.”

7. Why are you passionate about cooking?

   “Aside from using food to connect with my loved ones, I really love the challenge! I can get lost for hours in the kitchen trying a new recipe. And there's something really satisfying about tasting the fruits of your labor. It's the biggest stress relief for me to spend hours on the stove making a soup or stew or roast.”

Suzanne’s Bún Bò Huế

Recipe

Prep Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Cook Time: 3 hours

Total Time: 4 hours 30 minutes

Servings: 10 bowls [On Suzanne’s blog, you can adjust the servings and ingredient list]

For the broth

1. 4 lbs pork feet

2. 2 lbs beef shank

3. 2 shallots divided

4. 6 stalks lemongrass divided

5. 5 tbsp oil divided

6. 1 tbsp chile flakes

7. 1 tbsp chile lemongrass sate

8. 2 boxes bun bo hue bouillon cubes

9. 11 cups water

10. fish sauce, to taste

11. salt, to taste

Noodles and Garnish

1. 2 packages large vermicelli noodles

2. 1 bunch cilantro, finely chopped

3. 1 bunch scallion, finely chopped

4. 1 bunch Vietnamese coriander or rau răm, finely chopped

5. 1 banana blossom, sliced thinly

6. 2 limes, quartered

7. Chile lemongrass sate, to taste optional

Directions

Par boil the meat

1. Add pork bones and beef shank to a large pot with enough water to completely cover the meat. Add a handful of salt and bring to a boil.

2. Once boiling, turn of heat, drain and rinse meat well.

Make the bone broth

1. Return all the meat to a clean pot with about 11 cups of water. Add a shallot and half of the lemongrass (just the tough, green stops of the stalks) and bring to a boil.

2. As soon as the broth boils, turn the heat to low and continue to simmer for 2-3 hours.

3. When the pork bones are soft but not falling off the bone (1-2 hours), remove them.

4. When the beef is tender, remove it and cool. (2-3 hours).

Season the broth

1. Return the pork bones to the broth and add all of the bun bo hue bouillon. Bring the broth back to a boil.

2. While broth is heating, chop the rest of the lemongrass and the other scallion finely. You can use a food processor.

3. Heat 3 tablespoons of oil in a small pan. When the oil is hot, add the lemongrass and fry until fragrant, about 3 minutes.

4. Add the scallion to the lemongrass oil and fry for an additional 2 minutes.

5. Pour the lemongrass and shallot oil into the broth.

6. Return the pan to the heat and add 2 tablespoons of oil. Heat 1 tablespoon of chile.

7. flakes until fragrant and red. Be careful not to burn the chile flakes, or they will be bitter.

8. Ladle a spoonful of broth into the hot chile oil. Pour the broth back into the pot slowly leaving the seeds from the peppers behind.

9. Taste the broth and season with extra fish sauce and salt if necessary.

Prepare garnishes and noodles

1. Boil and drain vermicelli noodles according to package instructions.

2. Slice the cooled beef thinly.

3. Wash the Vietnamese coriander and remove the leaves from the tough stems.

4. Chop half of the Vietnamese coriander finely. Leave the other halves of the leaves whole.

5. Wash and chop the cilantro and scallions finely.

6. Remove the rough outer leaves of the banana blossom.

7. Slice banana blossom thinly into a large bowl of water with 1 tablespoon of vinegar or lime juice.

8. Cut a lime into quarters.

Assemble a bowl of noodles

• Drain banana blossoms and add some to the bottom of a large bowl.

• Layer vermicelli noodles and sliced beef. Top with chopped herbs and scallions.

• Ladle boiling soup over noodles and top with a few pieces of pork feet.

• Serve with lime quarters, whole Vietnamese coriander leaves and extra banana blossom.